






Class L 1 
Book 

Copyright N 0 La 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 






LADY TEDDY COMES TO TOWN 


















X 



“I just wish I could climb like that. It must be glorious 
to go so high!” See page 52 




LADY TEDDY COMES 
TO TOWN 


BY 

MARY DICKERSON DONAHEY 

Author of “The Castle of Grumpy Grouch’ * 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

WILLIAM DONAHEY 



BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1919, 

By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

(INCORPORATED) 


OCT 25 iJid 


©CI.A535473 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Mysterious Kings i 

II Mary May Tells the Story ... 17 

III Monkey Morley 35 

IV What Happened in the Big Woods . 45 

V The Lady Ted Has a Bright Idea . . 64 

VI Exciting News for the West Side 

Children 76 

VII The Hero of the Day 85 

VIII Six Routed Lady Detectives . . . 102 

IX The Big Woods Shield Another Trag- 
edy 118 

X A Knight to the Rescue .... 132 
XI The Hunt for the Lady Ted . . . 140 

XII The Little Old Woman in Black . . 156 

XIII The Third Note 169 

XIV The Cave Under the Black Rocks . 183 
XV Safe at Home Once More .... 197 

XVI Five Thousand Dollars 207 

XVII Lady Ted Gives a Promise . . . .219 




LADY TEDDY COMES TO TOWN 


LADY TEDDY COMES 
TO TOWN 


CHAPTER I 

THE MYSTERIOUS KINGS 

Monkey Morley, sauntering up the road to 
the West Hill as carelessly as if he had never 
really intended to go that way at all, met Tom 
Pressly and Barry Welles, leaders of the boy 
half of the “West Hill crowd,” coming down 
the road, and coming in a hurry. 

“What's the matter with you fellows ?” 
asked Monkey, innocently, though had the 
others taken the time to look at him, they would 
have seen that his big black eyes were fairly 
snapping with excitement under their sleepy- 
looking lids. 

“W-why, we heard that some folks had 
moved in over at the old King house, during 
the night," gasped Tom and Barry together. 


2 


Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

“Oh — shucks,” said Monkey, with a very 
bored manner, “I knew all about that ages ago ! 
Why, I helped with the moving!” 

If he had thrown a bomb at them, the other 
boys could not have looked more astonished. 
“You did?” they cried in chorus. 

“Y-e-s,” drawled Monkey with maddening 
calm, “I guess I know as much about that little 
surprise party as any person in King’s Town,” 
and he began drawing pictures in the dust with 
the toe of one worn shoe. 

“Well then, hurry up and tell us,” begged 
Barry. But Tom, mindful of others, broke in, 
“Oh, wait till we get the gang together. 
Everyone’ll want to hear. Come along up to 
our barn, Monkey.” 

“All right,” agreed that important young 
gentleman. As they went, Tom and Barry 
opened their mouths and gave three of the most 
long-drawn, tremendous yells ever heard, 
which must have carried miles through the 
stillness of the quiet, sunny Saturday morning. 

“Say — girls in this, too?” queried Monkey, 


The Mysterious Kings 3 

who didn’t care for girls. He knew that par- 
ticular long-drawn yell meant a gathering of 
the entire West Hill clan. The boys generally 
whistled to each other. The girls gave mild 
“Hoo-hoos.” Those three great yells meant, 
in local language, ‘‘Everybody in hearing come 
to the Pressly barn — double quick,” and Mon- 
key was a trifle upset when he heard it. 

But Tom and Barry, who both had com- 
panionable sisters, simply nodded, and whooped 
again. 

Instantly, Muriel and Madeleine Johns, 
roused by the first yell, came in sight around 
the corner of their house, their long, thin curls 
and their long, thin necks seeming to try to 
help their long, thin legs as they ran. Powell, 
or as he was generally called, “Pow Wow” 
Carpenter, the quietest boy in the crowd, ap- 
peared with a guinea pig peeping inquiringly 
from each pocket, and the hammer, with which 
he had been mending their pen, still in his hand. 
Fixing his troublesome spectacles firmly on his 
round snub nose, he fell into line. Bud Spen- 


4 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

cer and Jimmie Pressly, who, both mounted on 
Bud’s pony, had just started down the hill to 
gather news on their own account, turned the 
fat brown pony to the right-about face and 
made him gallop back, so being the first to ar- 
rive in the big breezy old barn, which Dr. 
Pressly had turned over entirely to the chil- 
dren, when he built his new garage up near the 
house. 

Mary May Pressly, who had been pounding 
the piano with all the horror of a twelve year 
old girl who is not musical, but is made to 
practise, came dodging out from the shelter of 
the lilac bushes. Knowing it was quite useless 
to ask to be let off the rest of her torture hour, 
she had taken the law into her own hands, 
climbed out of the window, and made her escape 
at first sound of the gathering cry, arriving 
just in time to help plump, pretty Georgia 
Welles push her fatter, prettier baby brother 
up the little slope to the barn, and to receive 
Blanche Black, daughter of the new Metho- 
dist minister, who, as a stranger, had to be 


5 


The Mysterious Kings 

treated with some formality yet. Mary May 
rather scowled at Phil, the youngest Pressly, 
who, being only six, wasn’t old enough to be a 
real member of the crowd and shouldn’t have 
•come. But Phil, conscious of being a recent 
kindergarten graduate, stuck up his freckled 
nose at her and went serenely on. 

Excitement had been in the air that morn- 
ing, and everybody came with such a rush that 
Monkey Morley, special speaker of the occa- 
sion, was actually the last child to enter the 
barn, and Tom and Barry had breathlessly ex- 
plained his importance before he appeared. 
So it happened that when he did step into the 
big sunny room, he was met by glances more 
interested, admiring and envious than any that 
had ever been turned upon him before. 

He stood still in the door a moment, looking 
at his little audience. There before him were 
the four Pressly children, all of them rather 
plain, very blond, freckled, wholesome, hearty 
and “nice.” Then the Johns girls, Muriel, 
prim and timid, Madeleine, noisy and boyish, 


6 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

both dark, and like enough to be twins, except 
that Madeleine was pretty and poor Muriel 
wasn’t; then Blanche Black, with thick brown 
hair neatly bobbed, keen blue eyes, pink cheeks 
and a very red, very determined, mouth ; pretty 
blond Georgia Welles and Barry, her hand- 
some, graceful dark brother ; then plain, clever, 
near-sighted “Pow Wow” Carpenter, and 
sturdy, red haired, smiling Bud Spencer. 
These boys and girls were the cream of King’s 
Town’s juvenile society. And here they were, 
gathered together to listen to him, Monkey 
Morley, at whom the girls, at least, frequently 
turned up their noses! 

It made Monkey feel very shy, and very im- 
portant too, as his black eyes looked from one 
eager face to another. It was, as usual, the 
excitable Mary May who hurried things along. 

“Begin, Monkey,” she cried. “Talk or I’ll 
die ! Who came to the King house, and why 
did they come, and what are they going to do 
now they’ve got here? Tell everything you 
know — quick!” With the last word she gave 


The Mysterious Kings 7 

such an energetic bounce that the upturned 
bushel basket upon which she sat broke beneath 
her, and she plumped down inside it, a mere 
mass of waving arms and legs and tow-colored 
pigtails. But the mishap didn’t silence her. 

“Talk,” she commanded from the depths of 
her small prison, “I can hear you.” 

But Monkey meant to be deliberate. He 
wasn’t going to tell all he knew and so lose his 
importance, before such a course was necessary. 
He said he wanted to sit down, and he was de- 
liberate in finding a seat, and he shoved his 
cap down over his thick black hair till it nearly 
covered his eyes, and then he took out his knife 
and began to whittle ! 

It was too much! An insulted gasp went 
up from his audience, and Monkey hastily be- 
gan, “Well, you know how hot it was last 
night?” 

“Why — yes,” came in an astonished chorus. 
What on earth had the state of the weather to 
do with the news in hand ? 

“Hum-m-m — well, my Cousin Cordelia 


8 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

wanted to go off somewhere, so she sent me to 
bed awful early, and then she locked the door 
and went. I just waited till I was sure she was 
out of sight, and then I skinned down the 
waterspout and went, too.” 

“Oh — didn’t you wait to get dressed?” 
gasped Muriel Johns, who always believed ex- 
actly what she heard, neither more nor less. 

“Hadn’t undressed, silly, except my shoes. 
If I get in between the sheets with them on, 
she catches me. I did not put them on again ; 
barefoot’s too much fun. I got away and went 
down to the depot. It’s lots of fun down at 
the depot, nights.” 

Monkey sighed with delight. The other 
boys sighed, as he had hoped they would, with 
envy. All, owing to the fact that they were 
possessed of careful, loving parents, were de- 
nied many of the joys Monkey indulged in, and 
frequently thought it might not be so very bad 
to be an orphan, in charge of a cousin of your 
grandfather ! 

“Hurry up,” growled Barry Welles. “I 


The Mysterious Kings 9 

don’t believe you saw a thing — you’re just 
bluffing.” 

Monkey’s black eyes flashed at Barry, but 
his voice went on evenly enough, “I went down 
to the depot, and I waited around with the men 
and pretty soon the nine-forty flier came in — 
and it stopped.” 

Monkey had meant to spread his story over 
a very long space of time, but somehow words 
seemed scarce. “It stopped,” he repeated, as 
if that were a most unusual performance. 
“And a lot of folks got off. There was the fat 
drummer who sells those extra-big all-day 
suckers to Mother Barlow, and that new sten- 
ographer up at the Mills, and — ” but here, see- 
ing signs of a storm, he finished hastily, “and 
a lot of strangers. Four of ’em. There was 
a fat old woman, and a thin young one, and two 
ordinary men, and they had the greatest lot of 
bags and bundles and trunks. They asked for 
a carriage, and they was awful mad when 
Noah Hicks told ’em old Bill Sill was sick and 
so there wasn’t no ’bus” — 


10 


Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

“Wasn’t any ’bus,” corrected Mary May, 
automatically, as she corrected the grammar of 
her younger brothers, when it strayed from the 
paths of propriety. “Go along, Monkey. It’s 
getting interesting now.” 

Monkey glared at her, but obeyed. “So 
Noah Hicks asked ’em where they wanted to 
go. And they said to King’s Wood, the home 
of Mr. Theodore King, Senior, and everybody 
around that station was so astonished they 
stopped whatever they were doing and came 
around to listen. Old Mr. Hicks’s little chin 
whiskers began to wiggle up and down, the way 
they do when he’s excited, and he says, ‘You 
must be mistaken, my friend. No one ever 
goes to either of the King houses any more. 
They are closed and deserted and have been 
for years, except for Mr. and Mrs. Alphonso 
Parler, caretakers.’ 

“But then the fat old woman spoke right up. 
She said it was true, and all right, and the Par- 
lers ought to have been expecting ’em for 
there’d been a letter sent. She said they’d been 


II 


The Mysterious Kings 

sent on purpose to open up the old King place 
and clean it and fix it, because — the Kings were 
coming back i” 

A gasp of astonishment went up from his 
hearers. Monkey paused. 

“Don’t stop — don’t stop/’ cried Madeleine 
the impatient. 

Monkey pretended to be much more inter- 
ested in the stick he was whittling than in the 
story he was telling, but his eyes, under their 
thick lashes, glowed with delight over the im- 
portance of his position. 

“Well,” he went on, “there was a lot of talk- 
ing. The fat woman who’d lived out there 
once as housekeeper, she said, wanted to tele- 
phone to the Parlers, but you know they 
wouldn’t have no ’phone — Mary May, if you 
catch me up on my grammar again I won’t say 
another word — and so Noah Hicks said, well, 
he had his automobile, real important, and he 
got out that little old car of his, and they got in, 
the two women and some bundles, and the two 
men walked, and a whole lot of us helped them 


12 


Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

carry the other things. I got an umbrella to 
carry myself.” 

Monkey looked triumphantly at the other 
boys, who would, he knew, have given a great 
deal to be so intimately connected with im- 
portant doings. 

“Was it a brown silk umbrella with a cord 
and tassel?” asked Georgia, who had wanted 
such a thing so long that it seemed to her much 
more valuable than the silks and diamonds 
longed for by the other girls. 

“I should say it wasn't! It was a man’s 
umbrella, or I wouldn’t have carried it,” de- 
clared Monkey decidedly, and Georgia was so 
disappointed she gave the baby buggy an awful 
jerk and started small Rob to crying. 

“Go on, Monkey,” begged the others above 
Rob’s racket. 

“There ain’t much more to tell,” said 
Monkey. “We took ’em up, and they asked 
questions about the town, and we asked them 
about the Kings, and we didn’t tell them much 
and they didn’t tell us much either. Nobody 


i3 


The Mysterious Kings 

was doing any answering, somehow. When we 
got there, the Parlers was up, of course, and had 
let the women into the big house, and Mrs. 
Parler was mad because he’d got the letter and 
hadn’t given it to her, or opened it or anything, 
and everybody was talking and scolding and 
getting sort of mixed up. So the new folks 
just took their things from us and said thank 
you and went in and shut the door.” 

“Oh, dear !” mourned Mary May and Made- 
leine. 

“Hear ’em say anything about keeping 
horses?” asked Bud Spencer. “They used to 
keep some dandies, my dad says.” 

“Shucks — horses are out of date !” exclaimed 
Barry Welles. “This isn’t 1904, when the 
Kings went away from King’s Town — it’s 
1912! How many autos they got, Monkey?” 

Monkey stared disgustedly at the boys. 

“Look here,” he said. “Do you think folks 
are going to tell everything about themselves to 
folks they don’t know, just after they’ve got 
into a house that wasn’t expecting them, at ten 


14 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

o'clock at night? They were pretty busy just 
thinking about beds to sleep in — I can tell you 
that! They didn’t say much to us. They 
talked to the Parlers.” 

“Oh, Monkey !” chorused the girls, in great 
disappointment. “Didn’t you see or hear 
another thing?” 

“I saw something,” said Monkey. “That 
white horse Mary May’s always told about is 
really there. Funny looking thing — a big 
white horse in the hall of a house !” 

“There, I told you I didn’t make up seeing 
that horse!” shrieked Mary May in high glee. 
“I told you I remembered it.” 

Immediately there arose a babel of voices, 
everybody talking about some special thing 
they had heard about the Kings. Monkey’s 
amazingly quiet audience was turned to Bed- 
lam, until Blanche Black’s cool tones cut across 
the noise, saying, “I wish somebody’d please 
tell me what all this excitement is about, any- 
how. What if some people named King are 


The Mysterious Kings 15 

coming back to their house to live ! Can’t folks 
come home without having folks act like this ? 
I think it’s just as silly as can be, so now!” 

There was a startled silence. The others, 
especially the girls, stared at her in horror. 
What could she mean? Didn’t she KNOW? 

They felt that the whole world must know 
the exciting, romantic story of the Kings — 
their own Kings — the Kings of King’s Town. 
And they said as much. 

“Well, I don’t know anything, except that 
they own the Mills and the town’s named for 
them and they don’t live here any more — or 
didn’t,” said Blanche coolly. “If they’re so in- 
teresting and wonderful, you’d better tell me 
about them.” 

The other children looked at each other. 
Then Muriel Johns said, “Mary May’s the one. 
She must tell you. Her folks knew the Kings, 
and then she tells stories so awfully well any- 
how. Get her to tell.” 

Blanche turned imperiously to Mary May, 


1 6 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

but that young lady said, “Not now,” so de- 
cidedly, that Blanche flushed and tossed her 
brown head. 

She had been used to being a leader herself, 
had Blanche, and she had tried to be here in 
this new town, until Mary May had kindly but 
firmly shown her there wasn’t room for two 
generals among the West Hill girls, and that 
she had no intention of giving up her place. 
Blanche, being a wise young person, had out- 
wardly given in, though she still resented “be- 
ing bossed,” as she called it. Her bright blue 
eyes flashed rather angrily, but she only said, 
“Why not? Where are you going?” 

“Over to the Kings, of course,” answered 
Mary May. “Very likely our folks wouldn’t 
let us, so there’s no use wasting time asking. 
We’ve just got to go. I’ll help you with Rob’s 
buggy, Georgia, so we can all go faster.” 

And down the long, warm, dusty slope of 
the West Hill raced an avalanche of children, 
Monkey Morley leading, Georgia and Mary 
with the baby carriage bringing up the rear. 


CHAPTER II 


MARY MAY TELLS THE STORY 

The children had rather a long walk before 

them. First, down the pretty road that led 
from the trim houses on the top of West Hill, 

then, across the little valley in which the greater 
part of the village of King’s Town lay, and 
so on up the slope of East Hill, from which 
looked down, not a number of medium sized 
houses, but two very large ones. 

It was hot in the valley, and everybody 
stopped at the fountain in the little village park 
to get a drink. 

As they stood there, they looked north, along 
King’s Town’s one business street, to the great 
black Mills beyond, while behind them to the 
south were the older homes of the village — big 
square houses, mostly of red brick, with lots 
of beautiful big trees and old-fashioned flow- 
17 


18 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

ers. It was June now, and the whole village 
smelled of roses. 

It was in one of these old houses that Monkey 
Morley lived, and in another, right next door 
to his, lived another child who played often 
with the West Hill children — Esther Barrows. 

Georgia, who never wanted to have any- 
body miss anything, suggested that they stop 
for Esther, now. Muriel added that she was 
distantly related to the Kings, and might have 
a little extra news to give. 

But the boys hurried on, and Mary May be- 
hind them, so the other girls went on too. 
Everyone was eager to see with his or her 
own eyes the longed for opening of that inter- 
estingly tight-shut house, at which all had 
gazed so many, many times. And so on they 
went, until at last they all stood, tired but 
happy, outside the big imposing fence that 
shut in the estate of King’s Wood. 

There was a gap through the thick shrub- 
bery within the fence, through which the great 
house could be seen, and there the children hur- 


Mary May Tells the Story 19 

ried, settling down on the grass outside the 
“peek hole” like a flock of birds. They had 
come there often before, for the big, silent, 
mysterious old house was one of the most in- 
teresting things in all their lives. No child 
with a shred of imagination but had dreamed 
what might be inside — what fun it would be 
to play in the grounds. They were such fas- 
cinatingly different grounds — unlike any 
others that these children knew. 

There were many giant trees and much thick 
lovely shrubbery, of course, though such things 
their own homes possessed. But — here, scat- 
tered among the trees, were wonderful marble 
people, in strange clothes, gleaming like ghosts, 
while the antlered heads of two bronze deer 
reared themselves at one side, seeming to 
watch perpetually for the nearer approach of 
two big bronze grayhounds, who guarded the 
walk to the front steps, or the great stone lion, 
who crouched on the open lawn. The boys 
groaned to think what fun a fellow could have 
playing hunter or Indian in those grounds! 


20 


Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Then, added joy, there was a miniature lake, 
with a rustic bridge across it, and white swans, 
arching their graceful necks and flapping their 
great wings in the sunshine, while at the back, 
built right out over the water, was a wonder- 
ful rustic summer-house, at which the girls 
looked longingly. Couldn’t one have the most 
gorgeous tea parties within its vine-hung 
walls? 

The house itself was very big and tall and 
imposing, like everything else that belonged 
to the Kings, and it was crowned by the last 
delight of all — at one corner of the mansion a 
tower went up, four stories high, topped by a 
round open porch with a little peaked roof — a 
porch from which it must be possible to see for 
many miles, and in which one could play delight- 
ful games impossible anywhere else — en- 
chanted castle, robber baron, and so forth. 
Mary May, especially, had looked with longing 
eyes upon that faraway tower! 

But no child of the present generation of 
children had ever even been on that porch. 


21 


Mary May Tells the Story 

The Kings themselves had not been there, and 
the Parlers were crotchety, silent old people 
who did not encourage any visitors at all, let 
alone children. The only thing that Mr. Par- 
ler ever would do, was now and then to turn the 
key in the lawn which started the fountain — 
when fascinating fishes threw streams of water 
from their mouths into a big bowl held high 
above her head by a very beautiful stone lady, 
from which the water streamed down again 
into the great basin of the fountain. 

Oh, the King homestead was a wonderful 
place ! Every child in town had admired it al- 
ways, and wanted to go in, and longed for the 
family to come back, so that perhaps they 
might ! And to-day it seemed as though their 
wishes were coming true at last ! 

Now, the big house of dull gray stone was 
far from silent and lonely and mysterious. Its 
windows were all open, its curtains hung in 
long, wet, white rows above the grass, its lawns 
were decorated with great rugs and carpets, 
from which men were raising clouds of dust, 


22 


Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

and even its big imposing chairs and sofas, of 
velvet and leather, stood out there in the sun- 
shine to be cleaned, like the most ordinary 
chairs in the world! 

“Oh, dear — isn’t it just the most wonderful 
thing you ever saw?” gasped Mary May 
Pressly, staring with all her eyes, while Muriel 
said half beneath her breath, “I never was so 
excited in all my life! Just look!” 

Blanche Black turned up her straight little 
nose and openly sniffed. She refused to see 
anything very exciting or wonderful in an 
ordinary house cleaning, just such as her own 
well regulated home went through twice every 
year ! She said so very decidedly, and all four 
girls stared at her in horror. Even the boys 
looked surprised. It was Monkey Morley who 
said, “I guess Blanche doesn’t understand how 
King’s Town folks feel towards the Kings, yet. 
I know I didn’t when I first came. It seemed 
funny to me, and I was lots littler than she is. 
You’d better tell her the yarn, Mary May.” 

“Oh, yes,” clamored the others. “Hurry, 


Mary May Tells the Story 23 

Mary May — tell her now.” Mary May loved 
to talk about anything. Most of all, she loved 
to tell stories. 

And so, leaning back against a tree trunk, 
she began in true fairy-tale fashion, a story 
that seemed to King’s Town people, as good as 
any fairy-tale that ever was written. 

“Once upon a time, long ago, there was a 
family lived up here on this hill, named King. 
It was all open country up here then, and there 
wasn’t the least sign of a town down there in 
the valley either, and there weren’t any Mills 
— the falls in the river hadn’t a thing to do 
but just be beautiful ! 

“The Kings had a big farm. The farm- 
house stood where this house stands, and it had 
been built out of logs by the first King, who 
had fought in the Revolution, and been given 
land here after the war, and brought his family 
out to live in the wilderness, with the wild 
beasts and the fierce, scalping Indians. He 
was very brave, and fought everything here, 
as he’d fought the British, and he was never 


24 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

hurt, or anybody belonging to him, though the 
Indians attacked him once, and burned another 
man they had caught, over there in the Big 
Woods, and the Kings could hear it all, and 
you can see the tree where the man was tied, 
to-day ! 

“But after that King died, things began to 
go very wrong with the family. The farm 
was big, but somehow they couldn’t seem to 
make it pay, and so they got poorer and poorer 
all the time. 

“At last the oldest son, Thaddeus, ran away 
one night, and was never, never heard from 
again. They never even knew whether he died 
or not. And then the two girls, who came 
next, were over in the Big Woods, right there 
beyond us, and somehow they fell into the 
Black Pool there, and were drowned, nobody 
knew how, and then Timothy, the next son, 
got discouraged, too, and he went out into the 
world to seek his fortune, and he never came 
back either.” 

“Humph,” said Blanche Black irreverently. 


25 


Mary May Tells the Story 

“Exactly like the story of the five little pigs, 
isn’t it? Who was the big wolf that ate 
Thaddy and Tim, and what did the last pig 
do?” 

But the others glared at her so angrily for 
making fun of what seemed to every King’s 
Town person the most romantic and wonderful 
story in the world, that Blanche had the grace 
to redden, and hold her naughty tongue while 
Mary May went on. 

“It just seemed as if all the trouble there 
was had come to the Kings. But there was 
another son, the youngest child, Theodore, and 
he didn’t go away, or die, or anything. He 
said he was going to support himself and his 
poor broken-hearted father and mother. But 
folks thought he took a very strange way to 
do it. For he tinkered a lot more at the old 
blacksmith’s forge his grandfather had had, 
than he did at farming. And he spent more 
money on the queer things he made there than 
on farm tools. And everybody said he was 
the worst of the lot. That he didn’t even have 


26 


Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

courage enough to go out into the world and 
try to make money, or energy enough to make 
it at home, and that all the Kings would go to 
the Poor House sure enough. And then, when 
he was the very poorest, and, folks thought, 
the very craziest, he married Esther Barrows’ 
great-grandmother’s only sister, for whom 
Esther is named, and everybody was just 
dreadfully surprised and sorry, and some said 
Theodore King ought to be ashamed to do it. 
Then Esther had some money of her own, and 
she gave it to her husband, though her family 
made an awful fuss. But she said she had 
faith in him. Wasn’t that lovely? With 
everyone telling her he was no good, and that 
she was silly? And he took the money and 
patented some of the queer things he had made 
at his old forge, and made some more, and sold 
them. And after awhile he had to have a man 
to help him, he sold so many. And then he 
hired another man, and another, and built a 
bigger place, and a bigger, until by the time his 
son, Theodore II, the old Theodore of to-day, 


27 


Mary May Tells the Story 

was a man, the great Mills had been started 
down there in the valley beside the waterfall, 
and the old farmhouse was gone, and this house 
stood in its place. And it was here that Theo- 
dore II brought his pretty young bride from 
the East, when they married, and here that 
Theodore III was born. But Madam King — 
who was young Mrs. King then — didn’t like 
King’s Town a bit. It was very, very little 
then, and she thought it was awfully pokey, 
and she lived in New York and Europe a lot. 
But Mr. King stayed here, with his father and 
mother, who lived to be ever so old, and he 
worked hard at the Mills and made them bigger 
and better, and he brought up his son to love 
them too. And when that son grew up, and 
got married, why his wife was different from 
his mother. She wanted to live right here. 
She was proud of King’s Town, and of every- 
thing in it, and glad to have her husband in 
the great Mills his grandfather had started, 
and so young Theodore built King’s Croft for 
her, that other house there across the road, and 


28 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

he worked hard, and she made friends here and 
everybody seemed just as happy. But the bad 
luck of the King family was coming back!” 

With the instinct of the true story-teller, 
Mary May stopped impressively. She had the 
satisfaction of seing that Blanche Black was 
very sincerely interested now. The others, 
old as the story was to them, were breathless 
too. 

“What happened?” demanded Blanche. 

“Death — and worse than death,” said Mary 
May dramatically. “The very same night our 
Tom was born, they had a baby too. But it 
was a girl. Wasn’t that dreadful?” 

“Why, no — of course not,” exploded 
Blanche, who as the only girl in a family with 
four much older brothers, had been taught to 
consider herself of a good deal of importance. 
“What makes you say such a thing?” 

“Goosie — because she wasn’t a Theodore IV 
— don’t you see? Why, it was about as im- 
portant for our Kings to have a son, as it 
would be for a real King to have one! But 


29 


Mary May Tells the Story 

she was a girl. And things were worse next 
day. For her mother died! She died that 
very night. Then they knew there wouldn’t 
be any Theodore IV, not ever, so they did the 
best they could, and named her Theodora/’ 

'‘Why doesn’t she live here? Is she alive 
now?” demanded Blanche. 

“Well, there’s a lot more of the story. And 
it’s just as interesting and tragic as the first 
part, too. She did live here — in King’s Wood, 
not King’s Croft — for the first three years of 
her life. She lived here because King’s Croft 
was shut up tight as tight, and never opened 
any more. Right after young Mrs. King’s 
funeral her husband shut up all the windows 
and shutters and doors, and they say that no- 
body has ever been inside the house since — just 
think ! 

“Young Mr. King took the baby Theodora 
to the old house to live. His mother wasn’t 
here much, but his grandmother was, and she 
looked after the baby till she and her husband 
died, on the very same day. Then young Mr. 


30 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

King and his father took the baby and thought 
they’d go ’way out West for a sort of change, 
and there was a fearful railroad accident on the 
way. Not one of them was hurt — neither of 
the Mr. Kings nor the baby nor her nurse. 
But young Mr. King began to help other folks 
out, and he went in to get a mother and baby, 
and he got them out, right from under a blaz- 
ing car, all safe and sound, but the car fell on 
him. He was dreadfully burned, and some- 
thing fell on him, besides, so he can never walk 
any more. He has never come back. He lives 
out there in California on a lonely ranch with 
little Theodora, and his father and mother go 
out to make him long visits. Old Mr. King 
only comes here once in awhile now, and then 
stays with Mr. Harris, the Superintendent, you 
know. They say he hates the sight of these 
two houses, too. Lots of folks in King’s Town 
hardly know him any more, but we do. My 
grandfather was his best friend, and he comes 
to our house sometimes to see father. He 
looks worried and sad, but he isn’t cross a bit. 


3i 


Mary May Tells the Story 

He brings us the most wonderful candy, and 
picture books, and once it was a puppy, and 
once a goat. And they say the young man 
says he never will come back any more. That 
he just couldn’t bear to see his Mills and not 
be able to walk around in them. And — that's 
all.” Breathless, Mary May stopped, like a 
clock that has run down. 

“What do you think of that for a story?” 
demanded Madeleine, and Blanche said hon- 
estly, “It is wonderful. But what has it to do 
with us ? Theodora isn't coming back to live, 
is she?” 

Nobody knew. But everybody supposed 
not, as her father wouldn't come, and she was 
said to be devoted to him. 

“Then,” said Blanche, “it only means the 
horrid old grandmother is coming, I suppose. 
I'd like to see the inside of that other house, 
that hasn't been opened in eleven years !” 

“Me, too,” said Muriel Johns, longingly. 
Muriel adored everything connected with the 
Kings. “Oh, look — here comes old Mr. Par- 


32 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

ler — straight for us. Oh, let’s run — what 
does he think we’re doing?” 

“I don’t care what he thinks — we’re doing 
nothing bad,” said Madeleine, who always did 
what her sister didn’t do, and Blanche Black 
said, “I’m not going to run from anybody,” 
which independence brought her a look of ad- 
miration from Monkey Morley’s bold black 
eyes. 

But Mr. Parler evidently did not intend to 
scold at all. 

“Is little Mary Pressly there?” he called as 
soon as he was near the children. And Mary 
May, though since her twelfth birthday, just 
three months before, she had refused to let any- 
body call her little, answered meekly enough, 
“Yes, Mr. Parler.” 

“Well, then, you’re wanted inside,” said the 
old man. “Come along.” And he stumped 
away, leaving a startled little crowd of chil- 
dren behind him. 

“Oh, aren’t you afraid to go? I’d shake to 
pieces before I ever got there,” gasped Muriel. 


33 


Mary May Tells the Story 

“Pooh — why? Nobody in there bites,” an- 
swered Mary May, perkily, though inside she 
was as fluttered as could be. “Only, you girls 
wait for me.” 

As if they would have done anything else! 
They watched her cross the lawn, up the great 
steps, and waited breathless until she appeared 
again. 

Curiosity would have held them, if friendli- 
ness hadn't. 

They had not long to wait. In a few min- 
utes Mary May came sedately down the great 
steps, but no sooner did her feet touch the drive 
than she began to run. She was a good run- 
ner, but was so excited she had no breath left 
by the time she reached her friends again, 
though they knew from her face that she had 
important news. 

“Fan her — fan her,” advised Muriel, begin- 
ning with her own skirt. 

“I’ll work her arms up and down, the way 
they do a drowning person’s,” said Blanche, 
whose brothers had been Boy Scouts. 


34 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

“Do tell us — do tell us,” chanted Georgia 
and Madeleine in an awful sing-song, while the 
boys showed by their looks what they thought 
of a person who lost breath after a little run 
like that! 

“Oh, give me a chance — leave me alone and 
I will,” gasped the pestered Mary May, wav- 
ing her well meaning friends away from her 
with both hands. 

“Now then — listen! What do you think? 

THEODORA KING IS COMING HERE TO LIVE ! 

She’s going to stay all summer anyway, and if 
she likes it and gets along with us, she’s to 
stay and go to school with us next winter, too !” 


CHAPTER III 


MONKEY MORLEY 

Everybody in King's Town, grown-ups as 
well as children, was excited over the home- 
coming of the Kings. When Madam King did 
stay at the old place, she gave big, imposing 
parties, and expected to have everyone make a 
great fuss over her, and had guests to stay with 
her who spent a great deal of money in the 
stores, and wore wonderful clothes which the 
King's Town people liked to see. 

So there was a crowd down at the station to 
meet them, though everybody there pretended 
to have come for some other reason. 

And again, as they too came on that nine-forty 
flier, Monkey Morley was the only child from 
the West Hill crowd to see them. 

Even he had very little to tell, when next 
morning he once more held the floor in the 
35 


36 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Pressly barn, for the old cousin with whom he 
lived, Miss Cordelia Montrell, surprised him 
extremely by being at the station too ! As he 
was supposed to be in bed, he had to keep out 
of sight. 

Monkey was disappointed. He had lived in 
King’s Town only five years, and had never 
seen any of the King family. He had a hazy 
notion that they might be like the kings over 
in Europe, and wear crowns on their heads and 
funny big velvet capes with fur on them, hang- 
ing down behind. 

So he was extremely disappointed when at 
last the train came and the Kings got off. 
How disappointed, he showed next day when 
trying to tell the story. 

“Ugh — they just looked like folks,” he re- 
sponded to Mary May’s excited questioning. 
“Mr. King’s just big and gray, like old Bill 
Sill,” at which a groan of horror went up, Bill 
Sill not being considered beautiful in town, or 
respectable either — “And that Madam King, 
why she’s just little and gray and fussy. And 


Monkey Morley 37 

the girl — oh, she’s ’bout as tall as Blanche and 
as thin as Mary May, that’s all to her.” 

There was a howl of dissatisfaction from 
the girls. Was that all he could tell them 
about this new playmate of whom they expected 
so much? 

To tell the truth, it was all Monkey had been 
able to see from the corners where he had been 
forced to lurk by the presence of Miss Cordelia, 
whose old eyes were very sharp and always 
suspicious of any small black shadows. 

Monkey wouldn’t have known that new girl 
if he’d met her face to face. When questioned 
about her clothes, he was only able to say, “All 
brown” which told far too little to his audience. 
His news being of no account, they soon de- 
serted him, but Monkey didn’t mind that much. 
He was used to it. When the children at the 
“best” end of town deserted him, he went to 
the other end, among the Mill people and that 
afternoon took a wonderful fishing trip with 
a Hungarian boy and two Italians — youngsters 
who were just learning English, and who con- 


38 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

sidered Monkey to be the cleverest, kindest 
person in all the world — an opinion which 
pleased Master Monkey hugely. 

He didn’t care about being left out of things 
that day, but the next week something hap- 
pened which did make him care a lot. 

He was running the lawn mower over the 
lawn about the old Montrell place. It was a 
large lawn for a small boy to keep in order, 
but so was the house a very large house for 
poor old Miss Cordy to keep clean. In fact, 
the whole place was very uncomfortably large 
for just one proud, lonely old lady, and one 
lonely odd little boy to live in. 

The house had fifteen rooms, all furnished 
with heavy, dark old furniture, much worn. 
The very best of the furniture was in the li- 
brary, and that room alone was open to callers, 
while only two bedrooms — the one over the 
library where Miss Cordy slept, and the little 
hallroom that was Monkey’s — were left un- 
locked. Miss Cordy had lived there alone till 
little Montrell Morley’s mother died, and his 


Monkey Morley 39 

father stopped in King’s Town on his way to 
China and left his little son with this one person 
of his mother’s family left alive, to live in the 
house where that mother had been born, and 
where she had lived till she married. 

Montrell had been six then, quite old enough 
to understand why he must live alone in this 
strange dark house with this old stern woman. 

He had tried to be brave and manly, as his 
father had told him, and had done so well that 
Miss Cordy, who did not understand boys, told 
the neighbors the boy had no heart at all, and 
hadn’t minded when his father went away. 
Which made Montrell feel badly, though he 
had the comfort of knowing that his father 
had understood. The fact that Cousin Cordy 
didn’t, made him rather stiff and silent when 
she was about, and as she hadn’t wanted him 
much, the two did not grow fond of each other. 
Little Montrell was pretty certain, after awhile, 
that they hadn’t much to live on except the 
checks his father sent, though other people, 
thinking that as the Montrells always had been 


40 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

rich, they must be still, never suspected there 
wasn’t enough money now. But the truth 
was, poor Miss Cordy had been very, very poor 
before Montrell came. And she was poorer 
now, because for a whole year there had been 
no checks from Montrell’s father! The great 
strange land of China seemed to have opened 
and swallowed him up, and there were now two 
mouths to feed from Miss Cordy’s scanty store 
of money. 

Montrell, though he did not love his cousin, 
was a loyal little soul. He never told anybody 
how scanty the meals often were, which she 
served on the delicate old china in the big hand- 
some dining room, how cold the rooms grew 
when visitors were not about, and that he 
looked ragged, not, as Miss Cordy said, be- 
cause he was so careless, but because his clothes 
were so old and worn that the most careful boy 
in the world couldn’t have looked well in them. 

Altogether, both Montrell and his Cousin 
Cordy had rather a hard time of it and were 
too proud to say so, even to each other. Miss 


4i 


Monkey Morley 

Cordy, of course, knew the nicest people in 
King's Town, and Montrell belonged with the 
nicest children, though he wasn’t very popular 
among them. 

But at least he had always been asked to all 
their parties and picnics. 

So this morning, while Monkey was run- 
ning his rusty old lawn mower up and down, it 
gave him a shock when the first hint came that 
he might not always be “counted in.” 

Esther Barrows came across the lawn of her 
house, and leaning on the fence said, “Isn’t the 
party for Theodora King going to be scrump- 
tious?” 

“Is there going to be a party?” asked Mon- 
key innocently. He and Esther did not always 
get on well together. Esther was a stout, 
serviceable child with heavy legs and light 
brown hair braided into a long, tight, thin 
braid. Her eyes were light brown too, and 
so were the freckles across her strong nose and 
over her round healthy cheeks. 

Esther lived with her widowed mother, two 


42 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

maiden aunts and her grandfather, and she was 
almost like a grown-up person herself. 

Now, she said in polite surprise, “Why hasn’t 
your invitation come yet? I received mine 
this morning, in the mail.” 

“I — I haven’t been for any mail yet,” evaded 
Monkey. 

“Oh,” said Esther, who hadn’t any idea 
Monkey was fibbing. “Want to see mine?” 

Monkey didn’t really want to nod, but he did. 
He was curious, but ashamed to be, so he pre- 
tended he had forgotten all about Esther, and 
the party too, when she came out with her in- 
vitation. 

It was a very elegant invitation, engraved, 
Esther told him with bated breath, at which 
Monkey, who had thought it printed, said, 
“Oh yes, of course,” as if he’d known that all 
the time. 

“I suppose the girls will be satisfied now,” 
said Esther. 

“What’s been the matter?” asked Monkey. 


43 


Monkey Morley 

“Why — didn’t you know? Theodora King 
has been here six days, and I am the only child 
who has seen her. Didn’t you know she didn’t 
even come to church?” 

As Monkey had skipped church himself and 
been punished for doing it, he simply shook his 
head. 

“Well, it’s true. It seems she’s always lived 
with grown folks, as I have, only she’s afraid 
of other children, and I’m not. She’s been 
afraid to meet any of us. Isn’t that queer?” 
Monkey grunted “U-hu,” but really he was 
vastly interested. 

“Why,” Esther went on, “she’s even been 
afraid to meet me! She was awfully shy with 
me. But everything will come out right, after 
this party, don’t you think so? And Madam 
King told mother, when she went up to call, 
that there was going to be ice cream from the 
city, in moulds, looking like flowers and fruit, 
you know, and wonderful cakes and candy and 
chicken salad, I s’pose, and — oh, the most won- 


44 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

derful food ever! Aren’t you just crazy to 
go? But there, I don’t s’pose you care — you’re 
so queer about parties.” 

Monkey didn’t explain that he was “queer,” 
because he always knew he’d be the shabbiest 
boy there, though he truly had never cared 
much for parties before. But he suddenly de- 
cided he very much wanted to go to this one. 

What if he wasn’t asked ? If Esther had her 
invitation, there was no reason why his 
shouldn’t have come too — if he was going to 
get one at all ! He thought very hard, but he 
only grunted at Esther, leaving her to say again 
that he was the very oddest, worst mannered 
boy she’d ever known, while he made an ex- 
cuse to go once more to the post office. 

There was no invitation for him there, on 
that day, or on any other. 


CHAPTER IV 


WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BIG WOODS 

Though Monkey tried to hide the fact, it 
wasn't long before clever old Miss Cordy dis- 
covered that one of those engraved invitations 
had not come to the homestead of the Montrells. 
She felt much worse about it than did Monkey, 
and, minding so much, said a great many things 
that hurt poor Monkey dreadfully. He stayed 
away from the West Hill children, all of them 
wrought to great excitement over the coming 
party. He went to the north end of town, 
and played there with Dominick and Rocco, 
his two Italian friends. The day of the party 
itself found him dirtier, more sullen, than ever 
before, and — all alone. Dominick had been 
considered big enough for a vacation job in the 
Mills, Rocco had to stay and help his mother 
do a big washing, there being no girls in the 
Pavesi family. 


45 


46 Lady Teddy Conies to Town 

So poor Monkey at last sulked off by him- 
self into the Big Woods. 

The Big Woods stood to the east, not far 
from King’s Wood. In fact, old Mr. King had 
once bought the entire tract of over five hun- 
dred acres with the idea of making, here in 
America, a real English Park. But he had 
never done more than fence in the land. 
More than half of it was made up of old, old 
trees, was in fact the original uncut forest, 
through which once wild animals roamed and 
Indians hunted. A certain blackened rotting 
stump was said to be the place where a white 
captive had once been burned to death by 
red skins, and there deep in the heart of this 
forest lay another tragic place, the Black Pool, 
where the two King children of another gen- 
eration had been mysteriously drowned. 

They were full of entrancing stories and 
strange secrets, those forests. 

Monkey loved the Big Woods. Strange to 
say, few of the townspeople ever came there. 
Mr. King had never forbidden people to come, 


What Happened in the Big Woods 47 

but they just didn’t. Monkey, who was afraid 
of nothing, loved the loneliness, the silence, 
and the mystery. Most of all, he loved the 
Black Pool. The Black Pool was really a 
small lake. 

At the far side the water from the Pool 
flowed down around and over a heap of big 
black rocks, which were always wet and glisten- 
ing from the spray, and went on to spread out 
into a marsh, where there were quicksands 
which made the place very delightfully danger- 
ous. 

On the west side, however, there was a curv- 
ing, pretty beach, densely shaded, firm and 
clean and pleasant. Monkey always went 
straight towards that bit of beach, always ex- 
pecting to enjoy it alone, so now his astonish- 
ment, when he saw a head bobbing about 
against the background of the still water, was 
immense. It was even greater when he saw 
that the head was that of a girl — and a 
strange girl at that. 

He stopped in the shadow of a great oak, and 


48 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

watched her curiously. She was a girl about 
his own height and age, and down her back 
hung a broad braid of reddish brown hair, end- 
ing in a single curl. She was slender, 
though not thin, and very quick and graceful 
in all her movements — or, as Monkey unroman- 
tically expressed it to himself, “she moved as 
easily as if she was greased.” 

Her face was tanned brown, and as he 
looked closely, he saw that it was heart-shaped, 
because her pretty hair grew into a deep point 
on her broad forehead, and her round cheeks 
curved down to a dainty, pointed chin. It 
struck Monkey as very attractive — that heart- 
shaped face framed in the wavy red brown hair. 
He moved closer and she heard him. Two big 
gray eyes looked up at him from under thick 
black lashes. She seemed startled, and her 
red mouth said “oh” rather suddenly. 

But she did not run or scream, as Monkey 
had expected that she would. She just looked 
at him, and Monkey felt himself growing red, 


What Happened in the Big Woods 49 

and wishing he hadn’t left home in quite such 
old clothes, or with quite such a dirty face. 

The girl spoke first. 

“Is there/’ she asked suddenly, “a way to 
get into that cave over there ?” and she pointed 
to a black cleft between two of the spray-cov- 
ered rocks. 

“There isn’t any cave to get into,” answered 
Monkey. 

The girl stared at him. “There must be,” 
she insisted. “Did you ever go to see?” As 
Monkey shook his head, she said decidedly, 
“Well, if I was a boy, you’d better believe I’d 

go” 

“Oh, would you?” said Monkey with some 
temper. “I s’pose you’d swim over, and get 
the cramp in this ice cold water, and drown. 
Or you’d try wading and go in over your head 
first step, and never come up. Or you’d cross 
the marsh, and get caught in the quicksand and 
skinned on the rocks and die that way!” 

“Is it really as bad as that?” asked the girl. 


50 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

“Oh, well, I’m going some day. You needn’t 
tell me there isn’t any cave. There is, and 
sometime I’m going into it.” 

“Rats,” said Monkey, inelegantly and im- 
politely. How could he know the girl spoke 
the truth, and that she would some day enter 
the cave that lay there — enter it in sadness and 
in terror. 

Neither of them suspected, fortunately, and 
Monkey walked down and stood on the beach 
beside the girl. On the way through the woods 
he had accidently kicked out from the rich 
mold a little store of chestnuts, forgotten by 
the squirrel who hid them. Fourteen nuts 
there had been in the little store, and they 
were sweet and good yet. Monkey was munch- 
ing one, and held out the others to his new 
acquaintance. 

“Want one?” he queried. “They’re fine 
yet.” 

“Thank you,” said the girl, gravely, and took 
a nut. The two chewed in silence, staring at 
each other. 


What Happened in the Big Woods 51 

The girl spoke first. “Do you live around 
here?” she asked. 

“Yes,” said Monkey, who, though dying of 
curiosity, considered that trait a sissyish one, 
and wouldn’t have begun the questioning for 
anything. 

“On a farm, or in town?” 

“King’s Town — old part.” 

“What’s your name?” 

“Monkey Morley.” 

The gray eyes opened wide in huge aston- 
ishment. “Monkey! Mercy — that’s not your 
real sponsers’-in-baptism name, is it?” 

“Oh, no,” said Monkey. “But that’s too 
long and fussy. I’m named for my mother’s 
family and my grandmother’s family, and it’s 
an awful combination. Altogether it’s Mon- 
trell Hamilton Morley. Isn’t that a mouth- 
ful? Monkey’s best.” 

“Oh, I don’t think so at all,” said the girl de- 
cidedly. “Why, it’s like a name in a story 
book. How did you ever happen to be called 
Monkey?” 


52 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

“Aw — I don’t know. Guess the kids call me 
that because I can climb so well. I’ve got aw- 
ful strong arms and I never get dizzy. Just 
look here.” 

Before her astounded eyes, he caught hold of 
a swaying grapevine, swung up it hand over 
hand to a tree from which it hung, gained 
the branches and went up through them till 
he waved a greeting to her from a limb so high 
that she gasped. But she did not scream or 
cover her eyes or beg him to come down, and 
he liked that. Most girls, confronted with 
his deeds of prowess and daring, made ninnies 
of themselves. This girl admired, but held 
her tongue. 

“Oh,” she said as he dropped lightly to the 
ground beside her, “it was perfectly wonderful ! 
I just wish I could climb like that. It must 
be glorious to go so high!” Then, looking 
full at him, she put the astounding question, 
“Are you what my grandmother would call 
a nice boy?” 

Monkey crimsoned and stammered. So did 


What Happened in the Big Woods 53 

she. “Oh, I-I-I- didn’t mean that as it 
sounded,” she said. “I know you’re nice, of 
course. I liked you the minute I saw you, 
if you were rather — soiled. I mean, are your 
people nice — I — oh, I’m making things worse 
every second and all I want to really find out 
is — why aren’t you at my party ?” 

“Gee whillikens,” Monkey’s eyes opened 
wide. It was his turn to be astounded. “You 
don’t mean,” he cried, “that you are Theodora 
King?” 

“Why, yes, of course, only they don’t call me 
by my whole name either. I’m just Ted.” 

“Then, why aren’t you at your own party ?” 
queried Monkey. 

Theodora flushed uneasily. 

“I — I didn’t want to stay,” she said. “I’m 
afraid of children. I left a note explaining.” 

“Humph, you didn’t seem afraid of me,” 
said Monkey. 

“No — there’s only one of you, and I’ve al- 
ways wanted to know a boy,” she answered 
calmly. 


54 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

“D — d-didn’t you ever know one before ?” 
asked Monkey, astounded. 

“Never. But father was one, of course, so 
I know a lot about them, and Ive always been 
sure I’d like them better than girls. You see, 
father was hurt — I suppose you know all about 
that. He never could stand it to come back 
here, and so, of course, I’ve stayed out there 
with him. We live in a great lovely ranch 
house, where we can see the mountains, and 
I’ve had ponies and dogs and cats and birds and 
even a little pet bear, but there weren’t many 
neighbors and father wasn’t hospitable any- 
how, so we hardly saw a person, and there 
weren’t any children except the foreman’s 
babies. The oldest of them is only six, and 
I’m ’most eleven, so of course they don’t count 
much. That’s why I’m here. I loved it all, 
but father said it wasn’t a natural life for me, 
and though I didn’t want to leave him, for he’s 
the most wonderful father in all the world, he 
made me come here where he was a little boy. 
He wanted me to know his home, that ought 


What Happened in the Big Woods 55 

to be mine, and the children of his old friends. 
But — I don’t want to stay. I want him. And 
I couldn’t meet all those strange children at 
.once — I just couldn’t do it. So — I ran away.” 

“Wow!” ejaculated Monkey. “Won’t you 
get a whipping though?” 

“No,” said Ted, her pretty nose in the air, 
“I never was whipped in my life. But I think 
grandmother’ll send me to bed without any- 
thing to eat, and scold a lot.” 

“And you’ll miss your party supper,” 
mourned Monkey. It was the good things to 
eat that had made his own banishment from 
the feast so extra hard to bear. 

“Not all of it,” said Miss King calmly. 
“Look here.” 

Monkey followed her up the bank, and looked 
as she parted the bushes. There was a capa- 
cious basket, covered with a towel. Ted 
lifted the towel. Beneath lay a bewildering 
heap of sandwiches, evidently of many kinds, 
lady fingers, macaroons, frosted cakes of pink 
and white and green, a box of the biggest 


56 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

strawberries Monkey had ever seen, a whole 
roast chicken, a generous scattering of stuffed 
olives and pickles, a box of sweet crackers, 
three bananas and, in one corner, a heap of 
delicious citified candy. 

“I wasn’t going to miss all that,” said Ted. 
“It was dreadful I couldn’t bring any ice cream. 
But it’s such unreliable stuff to carry.” 

“Why — you can’t eat all you’ve got here — ” 
stammered Monkey. 

“Oh, not at once. But I thought if I liked 
it in the woods, I’d just stay till they found me. 
Camp out, you know. That’s why I brought 
so much. And I brought two towels and my 
sweater, and the rubber poncho I wore out West 
when it rained, and two books, and my favorite 
doll. Luckily she’s a little doll. I had quite a 
load. But she’ll be company at night.” 

Monkey stared in astonished delight. To 
think of any girl’s being brave enough to even 
think of camping out alone in the Big Woods 
at night! The big woods! Why, there were 
all sorts of weird stories about them. Few 


What Happened in the Big Woods 5 7 

boys would have done it. He knew even Mary 
May Pressly would balk at the idea, energetic 
and enterprising as she was, and was certain 
Blanche Black, for all her level-headedness and 
bravery, would refuse, too. This girl didn't 
even think the notion remarkable! He was 
delighted. 

But all he said was, “So that's why you 
wanted to find a cave, was it?" 

“Of course. I'll have to find some place be- 
fore night. Don’t you want to camp out with 
me ? I think I'll like you, and Maria Mehitable 
is pretty quiet, though she is a dear," and Ted 
kissed the round red cheeks of her doll de- 
votedly. 

Monkey flushed with pleasure. It was a de- 
light really to be wanted by any one. And then 
— to have that person who wanted him the 
“Little Lady of the Manor" as Dr. Pressly 
had dubbed her, as he listened to the excited 
talk of the town. She who was “Lady Ted" 
to the curious hero-worshipping children of his 
set. The Lady Ted they all wanted so much 


58 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

to know, and to whose party he had not been 
invited ! 

“W-why — yes, thanks — I’ll stay,” he stam- 
mered in delighted confusion. ‘Til help you 
find a cave. Let’s start now.” 

“No, let’s eat first,” said Ted, whose gray 
eyes had turned greedy at sight of her pile of 
goodies. And Monkey had no word of objec- 
tion to that. She started to set the table dain- 
tily, but they were so hungry they soon just 
“pitched in” and by the time they were done, 
Monkey said, as he wiped on his corduroys the 
pocket knife which had cut the chicken into 
curious but delectable bits, “Say, if we eat like 
that we can’t stay so awful long, can we?” 

“Maybe not — but u-u-m-m-m — it was good,” 
sighed Ted. “Somehow I don’t feel near so 
much like exploring as I did. Let’s just lie 
here and tell each other about ourselves.” 

“All right,” said the usually uncommuni- 
cative Monkey, who felt oddly lazy, too. And 
in an hour each knew all about the other, and 
they had found that they had much in common. 


What Happened in the Big Woods 59 

Neither could remember a mother, both were 
far away from well loved fathers, each had 
led rather an odd life. 

Ted was openly sorry for Monkey, and — 
he didn’t feel insulted at her pity! 

The proud and lonely boy had had no one to 
tell his troubles to for so long that they fairly 
bubbled out, and Ted knew Monkey minded be- 
ing thought “queer” and wearing blouses made 
by Miss Cordy from old dresses she poked out 
of forgotten trunks in the attic, and being 
snubbed. 

“Of course your father isn’t dead, just be- 
cause you haven’t heard from him for a year,” 
she cried in high indignation. “Why should 
people say such cruel things to you?” And 
Monkey felt his own courage and hope, which 
had faltered a bit, revive beneath her passion- 
ate assertion. 

“They’ll tell you that — everybody says it,” 
he told her. “But I think he’s just off in the 
interior. They say there are places there 
where no white man has ever been, and there 


60 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

aren’t such things as mails. And listen, Ted, 
— just as soon as I’m big enough, I’m going 
after him. I’m too small yet. At thirteen 
maybe, if I learn all I can, and get big and 
strong, I can work my way. And then — I’m 
going!” 

It was the great secret of Monkey Morley’s 
life. And Ted understood it, sympathized 
with it, listened, with shining eyes, as he told 
her details. 

“And then you’ll both come back rich and 
famous, and folks will see,” she cried. Which, 
being exactly the end that Monkey himself 
saw to his adventures, made him consider her 
a truly wonderful girl, as clever as she was 
pretty and kind. He felt warmed, down to the 
very bottom of his starved little heart. 

In fact, it did him so much good that he soon 
found himself defending the West Hill chil- 
dren. 

“Aw, they don’t mean noth — anything,” he 
said, careful of his grammar for the Lady Ted 


What Happened in the Big Woods 61 

as he had never been for any other person. 
“They’re a good gang. They’ve just had such 
nice ordinary times always, they don’t quite 
understand folks like you and me. Georgia 
Welles is a nice little thing. She’s kind of 
stupid and slow, but she’s pretty and kind- 
hearted as can be. Muriel Johns is the limit, 
but Madeleine isn’t bad — full of fun anyhow — 
and there’s a new girl, Blanche Black, who is 
nice. You’ll like Mary May Pressly, I just 
know.” 

“What a funny name!” said Ted. 

“Oh, she named herself. Folks called her 
Mary, she said she was May, and wouldn’t 
answer to Mary, so everybody got to calling her 
both. She’s a dandy girl.” 

“Do you like her as well as you like me?” 
asked Ted, and flushed with pleasure at Mon- 
key’s emphatic, “I should say not.” 

“How about Esther Barrows?” she said 
next. “I’m afraid I’ll have to like her, being 
sort of related.” 


6 2 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Knowing this to be true, Monkey did not 
give his real opinion of the conscientious 
Esther. 

He told Ted about school, a thing strangely 
unknown to this new friend who had learned 
her lessons alone, with a governess. He told 
her about the different families in town, about 
the Mills and the children of the people who 
worked there, till she was informed on King’s 
Town as she couldn’t have been by any other 
person. 

They wandered about in the woods, swung 
in grapevine swings, hunted their cave, and 
then at last as the shadows lengthened, they 
emptied the big basket, and Monkey shyly sug- 
gested home. 

“They’ll be looking for you sure,” he said. 
“They’d never let me stay out all night. They 
even came after me once and took me home, 
when I tried it, and there wasn’t anybody to 
care much about me. It was then I found out 
I wasn’t old enough yet to run away, and you 
aren’t either and you don’t really want to run 


What Happened in the Big Woods 63 

away, anyhow. So you might as well go back 
all by yourself, without being taken. It’s more 
comfortable and — well, dignified.” 

Ted looked at him admiringly. He cer- 
tainly was a very wise boy. 

She felt that home wouldn’t be a bad place 
to sleep in, and it truly was better to go back 
of her own accord. 

But, just as she finished saying, “All right 
— let’s start,” they both heard a great calling 
through the woods, a trampling of feet, a great 
beating of underbrush and bushes. 


CHAPTER V 


THE LADY TED HAS A BRIGHT IDEA 

Both children realized the truth at once — 
the hunt for the “Lady of the Manor” had 
begun. 

“Oh, don’t let them catch me — I want to go 
home alone like a grown-up. I won’t be car- 
ried back like a bad baby,” stormed Ted. And 
Monkey, like the brave little gentleman he was, 
rose to the situation. 

“Drop the basket — drop everything — this 
way — duck ’way down — still, go very still,” he 
commanded. And when the worried pursuers 
of Miss Theodora King, missing heiress, came 
to that spot a few minutes later, they found a 
half bushel basket, chocolate smeared, a pile 
of crumbs and chicken bones, two dirty towels, 
a sweater, a poncho and one lone little doll, but 
— no Theodora. 


64 


The Lady Ted Has a Bright Idea 65 

“Well, she’s been here anyhow,” said Mr. 
Harris, the manager of the Mills, rubbing his 
tired face. 

“And not alone either,” said Mr. Johns, 
bookkeeper at the Mills and father of Muriel 
and Madeleine. “There’s another child along 
— look at the footprints.” 

“A boy,” said Mr. Harris. “Wonder where 
they went ? Let’s track ’em.” 

But not for nothing had Montrell Morley 
read every “Leather Stocking” tale in the old 
Montrell library. Not for nothing had he 
played Indian himself over and over again. 

He and his fair charge evaded all pursuers, 
and a very dignified, if dirty, little lady marched 
home with her nose in the air at seven o’clock, 
refused to explain where she had been, took 
her scolding, and went to bed supperless with 
a courage nobody understood till the party 
bearing the empty basket returned. 

Grandmother King was so upset by this es- 
capade that she stayed in bed three days to re- 
cover. Grandfather King gave Miss Ted a 


66 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

long, grave talk and made her feel how unkind 
and inhospitable she had been to her guests. 

Having, as her grandmother truly said, “No 
social training at all, ,, she had not realized that 
she was doing anything but save herself dis- 
comfort. 

As long as the party went on, the games were 
played, the stories told, the goodies served, she 
hadn't seen why her presence mattered in the 
least. 

When she discovered that it did, she felt so 
badly she nearly cried herself sick, and became 
more shy than ever with the other children 
whom she had mistreated so. 

She was certain they must hate her, and 
when Mary May and Esther, all excitement 
and eagerness to be friends, even if they were 
a little “mad,” came up to luncheon, Ted was so 
silent and stiff the guests left in absolute and 
final despair. 

This new friend wasn't to be a bit of pleasure 
to them, after all ! They held another meeting 
about her in the Pressly barn, only this time 


The Lady Ted Has a Bright Idea 67 

it was Mary May who held the floor, not Mon- 
key, though he was present. 

He sat at one side, whittling as usual on the 
little sticks that generally turned out to be such 
wonderful toys when he was through with 
them, and he never said a word while the others 
discussed the party, the runaway and the lunch- 
eon that had failed so miserably. 

“What do you think about it, Monkey ?” 
asked Tom Pressly at last. Tom was a warm 
admirer of Monkey's, secretly. But Muriel 
Johns, whose timid soul held but one dislike, 
and that for Monkey, said nastily, “Why 
should he think at all? He wasn’t asked to 
the party — he won’t ever know Lady Ted, 
very likely.” 

“Oh,” cried Mary May and Blanche, in gen- 
erous anger, while gentle Georgia’s blue eyes 
flashed and Madeleine turned angrily on her 
sister. Each boy held his breath. Monkey 
had a fiery temper. 

But though his black eyes were stormy, and 
his mouth hard, he only said, “I simply didn’t 


68 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

want to go, Miss Smarty. I don't worship 
folks because they’re rich. If you don’t be- 
lieve me — look here.” 

With which he produced one of the well 
known square white envelopes clearly ad- 
dressed to “master montrell morley, Elm 
Street, King’s Town.” 

The children gasped. Monkey had waited 
a long time for this opportunity. The in- 
vitation had reached his home the day of the 
party, by special messenger, with a note of 
apology from Madam King, who had found 
it mislaid in her desk, and Miss Cordy had not 
forgiven Monkey yet for not being on hand to 
accept it. Monkey had been scolded, whipped, 
and put to bed without his supper, which was 
rather piling things on, he thought. It had 
made him so angry, he had refused to tell 
where he’d been. Ted had kept silence, too, 
and now, though he had meant to tell of the 
friendship formed that day, he didn’t in spite 
of the fact that he well knew what excitement 
it would cause. 


The Lady Ted Has a Bright Idea 69 

“Serves ’em right,” he thought. “If they 
like being mean, guess I can be mean, too. 
Let ’em find things out for themselves.” 

So, his great impression made, Monkey 
strolled off, leaving a small wooden dog which 
he had whittled in the delighted hands of Geor- 
gia’s ever-present baby brother. 

The thing had been done artistically. Now 
he would go and do what everybody back in 
that barn was dying to do — talk to Ted King! 

During that long, breathless walk home, 
when time after time they had lain motionless 
behind bushes waiting for their pursuers to 
pass, they had planned future secret meetings. 
They hadn’t known then of the fact that 
Monkey’s invitation had been mislaid. They 
thought Monkey wasn’t wanted at King’s 
Wood, and so had planned secret meetings, 
half out of defiance, half for the fun of the 
mystery. And the meetings had gone on for 
more than two weeks now, though they knew 
there wasn’t any need of their being secret. 

Ted had never yet been inside the house 


70 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

where she was born — where her lovely young 
mother had died. She had not wanted to go. 
But she played in the garden there a great deal. 
King’s Croft, her father’s home, was very 
different from her grandfather’s. It was as 
big, but low and homey, lying spread comfort- 
ably out along the lawns, with broad verandas 
downstairs and sleeping porches upstairs, and 
many big windows everywhere, close curtained 
and grimy now, but which showed how pleasant 
a place it ought to be. There was a conserva- 
tory, too. You could look into that, but it 
wasn’t very pleasant to look, for the plants, 
those which had not crumbled quite away, 
stood in stiff, dead rows, like the ghosts of 
flowers that had been. In truth the whole 
house, which should have been so delightful, 
had a ghostly, unpleasant air to it, as will any 
house that has been shut tight for years, but 
the garden was a joy. It was not a formal 
garden, like the one across the way, and there 
were no statues in it, and no lake. But there 
was a lazy, pretty little fountain made from 


The Lady Ted Has a Bright Idea 71 

a natural spring, so it ran all the time, and Mr. 
Parler had kept the masses of old-fashioned 
flowers in some sort of trim, and the pergolas 
mended, so it was cheerful as could be, and be- 
hind, it sloped into an orchard of young apple 
trees, which marched down the hill and joined 
ranks with the old, old trees that grew in the 
“backyard” of the Montrell place. 

The two orchards were divided by a high 
stone wall, rather crumbly now, and Monkey 
showed Ted where he had made steps in it, at 
a place almost hidden by the down-drooping 
branches of an old tree which had been blown 
against the wall in some storm, and never 
straightened, though it had gone on growing. 

It was a shady place, and a lonely one, so 
under the young tree on her side they set up a 
playhouse. Mr. Parler found it, and told his 
wife how clever the young lady was, making a 
very presentable tent out of an old carriage 
cover she had begged from him. 

“As clever with her hands as a boy,” he had 
said approvingly, not knowing that a boy, and 


72 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

a very clever boy at that, had done the work. 

The old canvas kept out the rain, so the chil- 
dren could bring treasures there and leave 
them. There Ted was introduced to “Leather 
Stocking/’ and Monkey to pictures of the West 
that made him gasp, and try harder than ever 
to grow up very fast. There Ted read him let- 
ters from her father, and at last a message for 
himself. For Theodore King had known 
Brian Morley, and pretty Molly Montrell, too, 
and was delighted to have their son for his 
daughter’s friend. And there the two chil- 
dren, with a great map of China, which Ted 
had found in her grandfather’s library, be- 
fore them, traced the probable travelings of 
Monkey’s vanished father, making up won- 
derful tales of his adventures, his riches, the 
fame that would be his when he did come home. 

It was to this place that Monkey went now. 
Ted was there, reading, but eager to hear of 
the other children, as she always was. It was 
only seeing them she dreaded, meeting them, 
apologizing to them, as she must some time, 


The Lady Ted Has a Bright Idea 73 

for her treatment of them the day of her party. 

Monkey’s report of the meeting in the 
Pressly barn was colored to suit himself. He 
didn’t tell her how the children felt about her, 
having made that mistake once, and driven her 
to tears which shocked and terrified him. 

But Ted had a new letter from her father 
this morning, and read it to him, with a very 
grave face. 

Her father said he had not sent her away 
from him to live alone in his father’s big house 
with only one small boy for a friend, nice as 
she thought that boy might be. He wanted 
her to know many children. 

He told her what a funny baby Esther Bar- 
rows had been, how sweet and pretty Georgia 
Welles was, how clever and astonishing Mary 
May Pressly from the minute she could talk 
and walk, what nice boys he had thought Barry 
Welles and Tom Pressly, who was almost 
Ted’s twin in age, and how much he felt she’d 
like the other children, whom he couldn’t re- 
member. 


74 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

“He says I need children/' wailed Ted. “He 
says I've just got to make friends. And it's 
harder and harder every day. It's two weeks 
now since that horrible party, and I just know 
everybody's hating me more and more, and yet 
father says, 'You must make friends/ and what 
father says I must do." 

Monkey knit his dense black brows and 
thought. Then, suddenly, he cried, “I’ve got 
it! The kids are all dying to know you, Ted. 
The girls have been just crazy ever since they 
heard you were coming. Maybe they are a 
little mad about the party and your being so 
stiff and queer, 'cause they can’t understand. 
But they'd make up in a tearing hurry if they 
got the chance. Did you know they call you 
Lady Ted, and that Mary May has made up a 
fairy story, about your being bewitched by a 
wicked old ogre? Well, she has. Now you 
just think up some way to make up to 'em for 
the party. And you ask ’em up again, and be 
friendly with 'em. Shucks, you can be! 
Aren't you friendly with me? Weren’t you 


The Lady Ted Has a Bright Idea 75 

the days I took you down among the factory 
children? You weren’t afraid of the Truppo 
girls. Brace up, Ted — don’t be a ’fraid cat.” 

Ted hadn’t been with children enough to 
realize the insult of that term, so she simply 
said, “I won’t. Maybe I have been bewitched. 
It’s a lovely idea. I just know I’ll like Mary 
May, if I ever get the chance. Why — you’re 
the Knight who rescues me, aren’t you? And 
the ogre is — why the Ogre of Bashfulness, I 
guess. Oh, I’ll think of a way to down him. 
You see, Sir Knight.” 

And with a laugh, the Lady Ted rushed off, 
leaving a red and embarrassed champion be- 
hind her. 

But she used her wits to good purpose. 

That very evening she had her Great Idea! 


CHAPTER VI 


EXCITING NEWS FOR THE WEST SIDE CHILDREN 

The Great Idea was this : King’s Town had 
been talking of having a “Sane Fourth.” 
They had talked about it in other years, and 
realized that with their fire crackers and acci- 
dents they were far behind the times. 

But it was a little town that moved slowly, 
and fathers remembered so well the fun they 
had had with fireworks that they hated to 
take them from their children. 

Last year, however, two little girls down in 
the Mills’ district had been badly burned by 
a giant cracker thrown at them by a big boy, 
and Dr. Pressly and Mr. Harris were working 
hard this year to stop the sale of everything 
containing gunpowder. 

The Lady Ted, who had had Sane Fourths 
all her life, and liked them, suddenly made up 
76 


News for the West Side Children 77 

her mind that in helping Dr. Pressly she might 
also raise the spell that was laid upon her. 
The morning after Monkey had told her she 
must “get busy,” she flew to their tent and 
danced with impatience till he came, then, eyes 
shining, tongue tripping in its haste, she un- 
folded her plans. 

“Great,” cried Monkey, “great!” 

And that noon, Ted tackled her grandfather. 
Her grandmother had gone away for a few 
days, as she never could stand King’s Town 
more than two weeks at a time, and so it was 
that “Theodora’s mad scheme,” as the old lady 
always called it, was actually begun. 

She would have said, “No,” at the first, 
but grandfather was a very different person. 

He listened to Ted with his bushy brows 
drawn down till he looked very fierce, though 
really he was only thinking hard, and 
when she had finished, he said, “Well, well, 
young lady, that’s all very well and it’s a good 
idea. But can I depend on you to help me 
through with this thing you suggest? You 


y8 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

were noted for your absence upon the occasion 
when your grandmother gave a party for you.” 

Ted flushed and hung her head. “I — I’ll 
stay this time — word of honor — that’s one 
reason why I want to give it — to make up for 
the other time,” she said soberly. “It’s sort 
of an apology, grandfather.” 

Mr. King’s blue eyes gleamed approvingly 
at her. 

“Very well, then — the thing shall be done,” 
he promised, “on one condition. You go up 
and invite the West Hill children yourself.” 

“Oh — I can’t do that,” wailed Ted. “I just 
can’t — let me write them all notes instead — 
oh, please, please, grandfather.” 

And so it was that the next general meeting 
in the Pressly barn was excitedly called to 
discuss the tiny blue notes written by Lady 
Ted herself, inviting all to a “Sane Fourth 
Party.” 

“There’s going to be a merry-go-round,” 
said “Pow Wow” Carpenter, his eyes shining 
happily behind his glasses. Of all things, quiet 


News for the West Side Children 79 

“Pow Wow” loved a merry-go-round, and 
King’s Town children seldom had a chance at 
them. 

‘Their choofer’s going to take the kids out 
in their biggest car in bunches!” exclaimed 
Barry Welles delightedly. “I want to go 
every trip.” 

“Mr. King told my father he’d engaged a 
woman who tells the most b-e-au-tiful fairy 
stories, all dressed up in costumes, to come 
and entertain,” said Muriel Johns. “Think 
what it’s going to cost!” Muriel was much 
too apt to worship money. 

“They’ve sent to the city for the ice cream, 
again,” said Bud Spencer, resentfully. Bud’s 
father owned the drug store, and ice cream 
was one of his greatest standbys. 

“There’s going to be a band,” announced 
Esther Barrows, who had come up the hill to 
attend this meeting. “And a platform built 
for dancing. But did you know that the Mill 
children are invited for all day long, and lunch 
and dinner and — and everything, and we’re 


8o 


Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

only asked for the afternoon and evening? 
I think it’s mean. I’m not going to call Theo- 
dora King Lady Ted any more. She isn’t 
a lady. So there!” 

“She is too,” defended Monkey promptly, to 
the astonishment of everybody. Monkey had 
never before acknowledged that he even liked 
girls, let alone taking up the cudgels for a 
single one. 

“Oh, listen,” cried Blanche Black, “Monkey’s 
stuck on Lady Ted ! Teddie King and Monkey 
Morley !” 

“Don’t,” said Mary May. “Maybe Monkey 
knows more about her than we do.” 

“How could he?” sniffed Muriel, but Mon- 
key was on his feet, black eyes flashing. 

“I do know things you don’t,” he cried. “I 
know it’s all fired nice of her to give a whole 
day to the Mill kids. You’ll have folks to 
watch you and help you have a good time on 
the Fourth — they won’t. You have lots of fun 
they haven’t. I ain’t mad, and I ain’t going 
for all day either.” 


News for the West Side Children 81 

That was a thing for Monkey to say! Of 
course he had meant to be the first and last 
guest at that all-day party. Why, it was he 
who had suggested the program for the morn- 
ing ! H e had helped Ted at every turn, and en- 
joyed it all even more than she had. But if 
the West Hill crowd was going to be mean 
about not being asked for all-day — why he’d 
help Ted out in any way he could! She 
hadn’t asked the wealthier children for fear 
they might not mix so well with the others dur- 
ing the rougher games planned for the morn- 
ing. However — if they wanted to come, why 
not? 

So, leaving the discontented ones to wail 
in concert over the things they were going to 
miss on the magic morning of the Fourth with- 
out thought of the greater wonders of the after- 
noon and evening, which they would share, he 
went post haste to Ted. There was an explo- 
sion from that busy young person, but next 
day the West Hill contingent was asked to come 
for all day if agreeable. 


8 2 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

‘TU do anything to be friends,’’ said Ted, 
rather fiercely. 

“Maybe she means to be nice after all,” said 
the children. And the friendship Ted’s father 
coveted for her seemed nearer than at any 
time before. 

By now the marvelous tales of what was to 
happen at King’s Wood on the Fourth had the 
whole town agog, and few, young or old, spoke 
of anything else. 

Ted boldly had Monkey up to meet her 
grandfather at lunch, and he liked the boy very 
much, and wrote to his son that Ted was mak- 
ing friends at last — which amused that son very 
much. He had already known about Monkey 
so long. Ted was delighted with everything, 
excited, happy. 

There was only one cloud on the affair for 
Monkey. Miss Cordelia was making him a 
new blouse to wear. Now Miss Cordelia did 
not like to sew. Consequently she did not sew 
well. But there were many old clothes in the 
attic, and very few dollars in her purse. So 


News for the West Side Children 83 

she made poor Monkey blouses from the clothes 
of dead and gone ancestresses. The ances- 
tresses had had no consideration for this small 
male descendant, either. They had chosen 
gowns of pink and lavender and yellow, 
sprigged and flowered — materials no self-re- 
specting boy would ever wear. And the mate- 
rials were also so very frail, that if Monkey 
took one good, full, boyish breath, they gave 
way somewhere — Miss Cordy scolded and 
Monkey was still further disgraced. 

It was a very dreadful time for both of them, 
though Monkey suffered most about it. The 
new blouse was, luckily, all white. But — Miss 
Cordy had upset everything by putting upon 
it a broad collar with a ruffle around the edge! 
Ruffles — on a boy three months past eleven ! 

He was so upset at the sight of that collar, 
that it took some of the joy of planning things 
and bossing things, away. And on the night 
of the third, when he got home and saw the aw- 
ful thing spread out all ready for him on a 
chair, it made him so sick he voluntarily went 


84 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

to bed, thereby being the only boy of his crowd 
who missed seeing the merry-go-round come to 
town. A fact which quite elated Bud and 
Barry, “Pow Wow” and the Pressly boys, who 
had been outdone by Monkey so very often. 

But Monkey's revenge was coming — events 
were on the way that would make him and ev- 
erybody else forget even the shame of his ruf- 
fles, though you couldn't have made him be- 
lieve anything was big enough for that ! 


CHAPTER VII 


THE HERO OF THE DAY 

The Fourth of July dawned as fair and clear 
a summer day as heart could wish for, with 
just the proper amount of warm sunshine, tem- 
pered with the proper amount of cool breeze. 

Ted was up early, but the first person she 
saw as she ran to the window was Monkey, who 
stood inspecting the merry-go-round, which 
had been set up on the very handsomest stretch 
of lawn. Even Ted sighed a little as she con- 
sidered the state that lawn would be in by 
night. 

She hadn’t thought of it till she heard the 
wails of old Mr. Parler and the two new gar- 
deners Grandmother King had imported, when 
preparations began. But — fun was to be first 
to-day, lawns second! Ted tumbled into her 
clothes, tumbled her breakfast into herself, and 
was soon in the center of things. 

85 


86 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

The Mill people had been told to come early, 
and they accepted the invitation literally. The 
first delegation arrived at six ! It camped out- 
side the great gates, however, waiting for re- 
inforcements, but by eight so many curious 
little and big folk had gathered there, on the 
very spot where Mary May had told the story 
of the Kings not many weeks before, that they 
gained courage by numbers, and were on the 
point of starting in all by themselves, when 
Ted saw them, rushed towards them, and led 
them triumphantly into the grounds which were 
like fairyland to them. 

All the officials of the Mills arrived a little 
later, not looking quite so happy as the other 
people. They didn’t expect a day of rest. 
They were to look after the employees, see 
everybody had a good time, and yet protect the 
place as much as possible. Monkey and Ted 
were on the reception committee, and to the 
astonishment of the grown-ups, Ted shone in 
the work. 


The Hero of the Day 87 

The other children, the ones she longed for, 
but dreaded, hadn’t come yet. With these Mill 
children she felt quite at ease. She spoke 
French very well, and a little Italian, and she 
loved babies. Many a stiff self-conscious 
group melted into happiness before her. She 
drew many a bashful child into the heart of 
the good times, won the admiration of many 
mothers by her excellent taste in babies — she 
admired them all — and made friends among 
girls and boys, men and women, in a way which 
pleased her grandfather hugely. Years be- 
fore, when there had been fewer men in the 
Mills and those few had not been foreigners, 
he had been friends with each and every one. 
He liked the idea of knowing his men, and 
Ted’s example made him bestir himself to be 
pleasant to them to-day — to try to win back to 
his old ways. 

Things were harder for Ted when, at about 
ten o’clock, the West Hill children began to 
come up in prim, starched little groups. She 


88 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

looked about for Monkey, her rescuing Knight, 
but he had vanished, and her first stiff greet- 
ings over, Ted flew to find him. 

He was in the house — peering out through 
the curtains of the library ! “Why, what 
ever’s the matter ?” cried Ted. “Are you 
sick?” 

“N-n-o-o-,” said Monkey. Ted stared at 
him, speechless, for a moment. Then he gave 
a twitch to his collar which explained every- 
thing to her. 

He was wearing the hated ruffles, and his 
courage had given out when it came to meeting 
his own mates while clad in the awful things ! 

“Goose,” she said quickly. “Turn it in — 
let me.” 

Her deft fingers undid the tie Miss Cordy 
had knotted with such care, twitched it off, 
and taking firm hold of the offending collar, in 
two seconds had it tucked securely out of sight, 
Monkey’s brown neck showing in a V above 
a trim and sufficiently boyish blouse. 

“Jinks — now, why didn’t I think of that my- 


The Hero of the Day 89 

self ? I turn in my others right enough. 
Guess that frill stuff just had me scared stupid. 
Thanks.” 

And the Lady Ted’s Knight was ready to 
serve her still more valiantly than he had served 
before. 

She needed his help, for it did indeed seem 
as if a spell had been laid upon her by some 
wicked fairy. 

She was her own bright, jolly, pleasant self 
with the grown folks — with Monkey — with the 
Mill children. But before the others she was 
as chilly as a lump of ice, as responsive as an 
oyster ! 

Muriel, who would have fallen down and 
worshipped anything named King, was the 
only child who didn’t have a few unpleasant 
things to say about the Lady Ted, whom they 
had hoped to like so much, and in whom they 
were so disappointed. 

Poor Ted seemed doomed never to have the 
friends her father so wished her to acquire. 

However, the grounds were too big, and too 


90 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

much was going on in them, for the children 
to stay long in one group. 

Barry vanished to devote himself to the 
great auto which was carrying parties of de- 
lighted children for short rides, Bud to hang 
about the stables, though only a riding horse 
for Mr. King and a pony for Ted now graced 
the stalls where many horses of high degree 
had once stood. 

‘Tow Wow” Carpenter, for the first time in 
his life, rode on a merry-go-round as often as 
he pleased. Rode till he had tried the back of 
every single animal, and had to go in a carriage 
like a baby to get variety during his last rides ! 
Georgia and Blanche went straight towards 
the music, Muriel astounded Mr. King and an- 
noyed the housekeeper by wandering, a wor- 
shipping little lady of society, through all the 
rooms, admiring furniture, pictures and bric-a- 
brac, and Mary May Pressly succeeded in 
making her way straight to that entrancing 
tower balcony, and, sitting there, began to play 
frantically the games she had imagined she 


9i 


The Hero of the Day 

would play if ever she reached that place of 
bliss. She had unbraided her tight pigtails 
and let her hair down over the edge pretending 
she was a captive princess by whose wondrous 
locks a prince would climb up to save her. 
When the great horn blew for luncheon, Mary 
May tucked up her hair again with a giggle. 
She had a good sense of humor as well as a 
large imagination, had Mary May, and the 
sight of her not very long or very thick hair 
blowing over the side of that tower had been 
rather funny, considering the thoughts she’d 
been having! 

“The princesses must have brushed their hair 
a thousand strokes a night and used a wonder- 
ful hair tonic,” she said, as she went down to 
eat. 

She found the West Hill children standing 
together, the Mill people being marshalled into 
their seats by Mr. Harris, Ted and Monkey, 
whose importance on this occasion was a source 
of growing astonishment to his mates. 

Mr. King came towards the other children 


92 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

and led them to a table too, where they sat op- 
posite a long row of Mill children of about 
their ages. But things were rather stiff. 
Though the two sets of youngsters saw each 
other in the streets of the town, they did not 
go to the same schoolhouse till High School 
days, which none of them had reached as yet, 
and each set sat glowering at the other across 
the way. Ted felt that her greater duty lay 
towards her poorer guests, and so was charm- 
ing to them, thereby adding, in all innocence, 
another row of bricks to the wall that was shut- 
ting her away from her nearest neighbors. 

Monkey was extremely happy. The ruffles 
were quite hidden, and Cousin Cordy had not 
caught him yet, and Mr. King had pinned upon 
him a ribbon which meant he was an officer of 
the grounds — a ribbon like those worn by Mr. 
Harris and Mr. Johns and the different super- 
intendents. That ribbon was winning him the 
deepest respect from the West Hill boys, and 
beneath it Monkey’s breast swelled till it nearly 
burst. 


93 


The Hero of the Day 

He was a person of importance to-day, if he 
never had been before ! After lunch, the chil- 
dren and grown-ups were ranged in seats on 
the lawn and entertained by the story-teller, 
who had wonderful tales to tell and wonderful 
clothes to tell them in, and by the band which 
played the most fascinating music, and, last but 
by no means least, by a magician who, before 
their very eyes, made roses grow in hats, and 
brought rabbits from the pockets of dignified 
Mr. King himself. 

After that everybody sat about and rested 
until supper time. Tired children slept in the 
arbor and under gay little tents dotted here 
and there on the broad lawns, women gossiped 
in little groups as they rocked their babies, men 
smoked Mr. King’s cigars under the trees, and 
even the merry-go-round took a much needed 
vacation. 

Then came supper, served rather late so 
there wouldn’t be too long a wait between its 
end and the beginning of the fireworks. 

The fireworks were most of them to be set 


94 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

off from the roof of the porte-cochere, and 
Monkey had helped carry the great rockets and 
Roman candles and pinwheels up there the day 
before. 

All during the long, exciting day, he had 
been very busy. He had entertained children, 
making sure the bashful ones had all the fun 
the others had. He had run errands, kept 
prowling babies out of the gardener’s pet 
flower beds, and explained things, and an- 
swered questions, till he felt tired from the top 
of his black head to the tips of his feet. 

When, at last, the people were all settled 
down watching the fireworks — none of which, 
to his huge disgust, was he allowed to set off — 
he stole away to the deserted summer-house. 
It had been full all day long, but now everyone 
was out where they could see the fireworks. 
He had discovered that, lying full length on a 
certain seat, he could see very well through a 
hole in the vines, and rest while he watched, 
so he stretched himself out there with a sigh 
of relief. 


95 


The Hero of the Day 

Nobody could have seen him, unless they had 
looked very hard, so dark was it in the little 
place, and he lay very still. 

And so it was that suddenly he heard men’s 
voices outside. The voices spoke in Italian, 
mixed with English, and Monkey understood 
almost everything they said. He had had a 
shrewd notion that when the time came for him 
to go out in search of his father, he would 
need all the knowledge he could get, foreign 
languages especially. So Monkey was one of 
the best scholars in school, and had learned a 
good deal of Italian from his friends Dominick 
and Rocco, with whom he played so much. 

More for practice than anything else, he 
listened now to the voices outside the summer- 
house, never thinking that he might hear things 
he wasn’t supposed to know — or which might 
ever do him the least good. 

There were two men talking. One he recog- 
nized immediately. He was a man who had 
recently come to board with the Pavesis. Most 
of the “hands” were Austrians, but a few of 


g6 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

the older ones were Italians, and Mrs. Pavesi 
eked out her husband’s pay by taking some 
boarders from among her countrymen. This 
man, Paul, was a stranger to everybody, and 
he had not tried for work in the Mills at all. 
He got odd jobs about town, and in between 
times sat around playing an old guitar and en- 
tertaining the children of the Pavesi and 
Truppo families. 

Monkey had met the man twice, and had dis- 
liked him exceedingly, at first sight, though he 
couldn’t for the life of him have told exactly 
why. Others got on with him well enough. 

He had a queer deep huskiness in his voice, 
which made it very easy to recognize, and now 
Monkey heard him saying that the Kings must 
be very rich people. The other man answered 
in Italian a little beyond Monkey’s knowledge, 
but it was something that sounded like boast- 
ing. He evidently wished this stranger to un- 
derstand that these people for whom he worked 
were indeed among the very wealthiest of the 
earth. 


97 


The Hero of the Day 

“And only one girl child to give it to,” Paul 
answered. “It is too much for so few people 
to have now — much too much for one girl. 
They ought to give a great deal to the poor. 
If they do not give it, it should be taken from 
them. I know a way, too.” 

The other man laughed, and began to tell of 
the hospital Mr. King supported for the men 
and their families, the kindergarten, the amuse- 
ment hall. Monkey was not interested, and he 
wasn’t so tired any more. He knew all about 
those things, and he wanted to go out anyhow 
and be in the heart of the fun again. 

So he swung his feet, in their noiseless rub- 
ber-soled tennis shoes, to the ground, and moved 
away. He took no care to go quietly — he just 
did, moving off like a shadow, unseen and un- 
heard, by the two still talking at the farther 
side of the summer-house, and if he had not 
had any particular reason to think of their 
conversation again, it would have been quite 
driven out of his head by the great excitement 
which soon followed. 


98 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

The excitement came about through pretty 
little brown-eyed Angelina Truppo, Dominick’s 
baby sister. When Monkey joined the crowd 
again, Mr. Harris was handing the little chil- 
dren “sparklers,” which were supposed to be 
quite safe. The sparks from them were, but 
the hot cores, left after the sparks had all 
flown, were not, though nobody knew that fact 
until the damage was all done. 

As Monkey came up, Angelina was holding 
one of the pretty sparkling toys high up in her 
little brown hand, crowing with delight as the 
bits of golden flame shot here and there. 
Then, the last spark died. Intent on watch- 
ing the sparkler in the hand of another happy 
child, she let her own drop against the skirt 
of her flimsy white “best dress.” 

In a second, a streak of real flame shot up, 
where the hot little core had set fire to the thin 
material. 

A few people laughed, thinking the fire 
another bit of the Fourth of July display. But 
the children who were nearest to Angelina saw 


99 


The Hero of the Day 

and understood, and ran, shrieking with fear. 

Monkey had understood at once. Quick as 
a flash, he jumped towards the screaming baby, 
pushed her over, and rolled her on the grass, 
beating at the fire with his hands, tearing away 
her flaming clothes from her body, until, be- 
fore most of the people near had even realized 
that there was danger, it was all past, and 
other helpers could only pick up the safe but 
frightened baby and try to quiet her cries. 

When Angelina’s terrified mother arrived, 
she found a baby with very few clothes, but 
practically no burns, and a big boy who was 
white with pain. For Monkey's hands had 
been badly burned. Dr. Pressly soon had him 
trussed up in bandages, and Mr. King sent him 
home in state in the big auto, with Miss Cordy 
by his side, and the cheers of his friends, the 
Mill people, ringing in his ears. 

Monkey was more than half ashamed of the 
whole thing. He was certain that Barry and 
Tom and the others would laugh at all the 
hand kissing Mrs. Truppo had tried upon his 


ioo Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

bandaged fingers — would make fun of the way 
he had been cheered, and carried to the auto 
on the shoulders of the men. But he discov- 
ered later that they, too, looked on him as a 
hero. 

Angelina’s accident had closed the great 
Sane Fourth — a Sane Fourth and a fire seemed 
a grim sort of joke! 

But as no real harm had been done, and a 
great deal of fun had been given many people, 
nobody complained. Angelina was presented 
with a wonderful new outfit of clothes, the 
handsomest doll she ever had owned and many 
visits from her adored “Signorita Theodora,” 
who always brought goodies for the whole 
family, so the Truppos were happy. 

Monkey, for his reward, received a half 
dozen of the stoutest, most boyish blouses ever 
made, to make up for the ruined white one, 
which pleased him and Miss Cordy both, and 
the Truppos sent him a bottle of wine, and that 
shocked prim Miss Cordy dreadfully, though 
to Monkey’s relief, she took it in politely 


IOI 


The Hero of the Day 

enough when Dominick brought it to the door, 
and said, “Thank you.” 

The wine was put away and forgotten, and 
Monkey thought the whole incident was soon 
forgotten too. But it was not, as he discov- 
ered to his great joy afterward. He had 
helped himself and his friend Ted more than 
he dreamed, the night of the Sane Fourth 
party. 


CHAPTER VIII 


SIX ROUTED LADY DETECTIVES 

It was very hot up in the third story of the 
Johns's home, but all of the West Hill girls 
were gathered there one morning in July, play- 
ing paper dolls. 

They played up in the big attic room because 
. it was the one place where they could be cer- 
tain that their “houses” would not be dis- 
turbed. 

These houses were nothing in the world but 
strips of inch-wide paper, laid down to indi- 
cate rooms, with colored strips to outline the 
estates of the dollies, their flower beds, tennis 
courts and lakes. 

There was a very broad “street” down the 
center of the attic floor, and on one side the 
mansions were occupied by the De Montmor- 
encies, Mary May's family, the St. Clair’s, who 


102 


Six Routed Lady Detectives 103 

belonged to Blanche Black, and the Alcotts, 
property of hero-worshipping Madeleine, while 
across the way resided the Kings, established 
by loyal Muriel, and the Washingtons, who 
were under the sway of patriotic Georgia. A 
strictly literary tribe, the Brontes, lived in great 
seclusion at the end of the street. They did 
not appear in Paper Doll society as often as 
they might, had their owner or patron, or what- 
ever she claimed to be, Esther Barrows, climbed 
the W est Hill oftener to play in the Johns's at- 
tic. 

Mary May had sworn a great oath not to 
play dolls after she was thirteen. And the 
thirteenth birthday being only a few months 
away, she was now repenting that oath, playing 
with her pet toys frantically on every occasion, 
and making the other girls play with her when- 
ever she could. 

“Do let's go out where it's cooler," begged 
Georgia, mopping off her pretty pink face with 
a rather grimy handkerchief. 

Gwendolyn Gladys DeMontmorenci had just 


104 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

had a large and successful wedding in a paper 
church erected especially for the occasion, and 
everybody was rather weary. 

“Oh, no,” pleaded Mary May. “Stay a lit- 
tle longer. If you do melt off a little it won’t 
hurt. You’re too fat as you are. And I’m 
just going to set Gwendolyn up as a family all 
by herself, with those perfectly darling twin 
babies I cut out last night, and that nice little 
nursemaid. I can run two families just as well 
as not, and I’ll put her in the place we’d saved 
for Theodora King. It’s very evident that 
my Lady Ted isn’t going to play paper dolls or 
anything else with us, the way she’s acted ever 
since she struck this town.” 

Mary May sniffed. Her sniffs were echoed 
with still greater contempt by everyone but 
Muriel, who said, “Perhaps she’ll come yet. 
My father says she really wants to be friends 
and doesn’t know how, and I believe it.” 

“Shucks,” said Blanche Black suddenly. 
“We’ve given her chances enough. But who 
cares anyhow? But Mary May, don’t wait 


Six Routed Lady Detectives 105 

to set up Gwendolyn. You haven’t any fur- 
niture for her, and nobody can set up house- 
keeping with nothing but twin babies, no matter 
how cute they are.” 

But Mary May was adamant, and the others 
with a chorus of sighs were “giving in” when 
an agitated footstep was heard upon the stairs, 
and a voice called, “Girls — oh, girls — you 
aren’t up in that oven, are you?” 

“Yes — come on up, Esther. The Brontes 
are just dying to give a moonlight picnic,” en- 
couraged Mary May. 

But Esther stopped on the stairway, her 
round spectacled face seeming to hang by its 
chin upon the attic floor, while her big hazel 
eyes gazed excitedly at her friends through 
the banister palings. 

“Come on down,” she cried. “I’ve got heaps 
to tell you, and I’m baked enough already. I 
just can’t talk here. It’s about Ted King and 
Monkey Morley. Hurry !” 

To a girl, the others jumped as if they had 
been shot. Mary May jabbed the poor bride 


106 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

head downwards into her mother's home, 
slammed the twin babies back into the maga- 
zine from which they had been cut, and rose 
with a whirl of skirts. Careful Muriel waited 
to pull down the windows, so that no maraud- 
ing breeze could blow the families away, or 
mix them past all recognition, and then fol- 
lowed the noisy descent of the others. 

In a minute, the knot of girls was piled hel- 
ter-skelter into the big red swing under the 
maples, and everyone was crying, “Oh, Esther, 
what is it ? Hurry up and tell ! Hurry up and 
tell !" 

“Well," said Esther importantly, “you know 
how much queerer than usual Monkey Morley 
has been all summer?" 

The others nodded energetically. “Even 
the boys have hardly seen him," said Georgia. 

“No wonder. Do you know where he's 
been?" 

“With those horrid foreign boys. He has 
such low tastes," sniffed Muriel. 

“Wi — why, with the Lady Ted," guessed 


Six Routed Lady Detectives 107 

Mary May, in a blaze of sudden understand- 
ing. 

Esther glared at her as people always glare 
at those who have answered their pet puzzles 
correctly. “Um mum,” she said rather sulk- 
ily. 

But her effect had not been entirely dead- 
ened. “With Lady Ted,” screamed the others. 
“LADY TED f Oh, you must be mistaken, 
Esther — how?” 

Esther smoothed her trim skirts down over 
her knees. “I’ll tell you,” she said. “Just 
listen. I never have gone out into our orchard 
a great deal. But since school let out, Eve 
noticed how much Monkey Morley went into 
his. He’d go back there under the trees and 
vanish, and stay the longest time! And last 
week I got 'Sherlock Holmes’ out of the library, 
and so when I read it, I thought I’d do a little 
detecting too.” 

“Oh — goodness,” said Mary May, rather 
helplessly. Generally she was the one who 
read books and copied the doings of the people 


io8 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

inside them. She felt that Esther was rather 
stealing her thunder. But Esther went on, 
evidently much delighted with herself, “So 1 
watched and watched, without seeming to 
watch at all. And to-day when he vanished, 
I crept after him, just as still as could be. He 
climbed that old stone wall, between our places 
and King’s Croft, and went into Theodora 
King’s orchard, and he didn’t come back for 
ages. Not till Miss Cordy called him for 
lunch. And right after lunch, he went over 
there in the same way, again.” 

“Well?” asked Mary May impatiently, as 
Esther stopped. 

“Well — that’s all,” said Esther in a rather 
grieved tone. “Isn’t that enough?” 

“Mercy — no,” exploded Mary May. “He 
may just have taken that as a short cut to the 
Big Woods, or — or a dozen places. It doesn’t 
show he has a thing to do with Lady Ted. Did 
you look over the wall?” 

“No, I didn’t,” said Esther sulkily. “It’s 
awfully high.” 


Six Routed Lady Detectives 109 

“Do you think he may be there yet?” asked 
Mary May. 

“Maybe — I don’t know.” 

“Well, we’ll just go and look,” announced 
the intrepid Mary May. “Come along, girls.” 
With a swoop, Mary May caught hold of 
Georgia, apt to be slow because both mind and 
body were a little heavy, and yanked her along 
at a great pace. Madeleine gave a whoop of 
joy, and followed ; Blanche, the best runner in 
the crowd, soon led the van. Only Muriel, the 
timid, and Esther, the conscientious, wavered. 
But curiosity was too strong for them in the 
end. They followed, and the prim and quiet 
Barrows home was startled soon after, by the 
gingham-clad hurricane which swept past it. 

The children rarely came to that house to 
play. There were too many places where Mrs. 
Barrows and the two aunts said they couldn’t 
go — too many things that “little ladies” were 
not supposed to do or say, or think. 

The other girls were sorry for Esther, but 
did not pretend even to wish to share her bring- 


no Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

ing up. To-day, they forgot all rules, and left 
Grandpa Barrows grinning, the ladies scowl- 
ing, in their wake. 

Straight through the yard they sped, but as 
they reached the orchard Mary May stopped 
them suddenly, whirling about with a mighty 

“HUSH!” 

“If there is anything worth seeing over that 
wall,” she said tensely, “we won’t see it by mak- 
ing a noise. Sherlock Holmes was awfully 
quiet, and so were the Indians. I — I shouldn’t 
wonder if we hadn’t better take off our shoes 
and go barefoot.” 

When Mary May began to play a game, she 
always played it, as her brothers said, to the 
limit. She was already fumbling at the rib- 
bons of her low shoes when Blanche Black, 
the practical, said firmly, “We will not. Don’t 
be silly, Mary May. We weren’t brought up 
barefoot. Somebody’s sure to step on some- 
thing, and howl. And that would be noisier 
than any footsteps. Come along. We’ll step 
ever so easy.” 


Ill 


Six Routed Lady Detectives 

Mary May had not only imagination. She 
had common sense as well. She saw at once 
that she had gone too far, so tied up her shoe 
lace again, and a silent but well-shod little 
party crept silently down the long rows of apple 
trees, till they reached the stone wall, when 
they halted, still in silence, and stood while 
Mary May crept forward on scout duty. 

The wall was high. Mary May saw no way 
to get to the top of it easily and silently. Then 
her sharp eyes showed her that it was a trifle 
lower at one place on the Montrell side of the 
fence. The fence was old and low. In a min- 
ute she was across it, and, stealing forwards, 
saw the steps Monkey had made. With fran- 
tic wavings of her arms, she signalled to her 
rearguard, brought them up with a swiftness 
and silence that would have filled the soul of 
Napoleon with envy, and pointed out footholds 
with eager rapidity. 

Which was the reason that Monkey and Ted, 
lolling the hot afternoon away with endless 
games of parchesi under the apple trees, were 


ii 2 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

suddenly roused by a very howl of laughter, 
and looked up, astounded, to behold their pri- 
vacy invaded at last. 

They had heard the clatter of small stones 
dislodged by Georgia and Esther, always 
clumsy climbers, and been mildly surprised. 
But now above them on the wall, they beheld 
a row of six grinning heads. Six pairs of 
eyes /were fixed upon them, all very round, 
very bright, and six voices were saying, 
“O-o-o-h-h !” in six varying degrees of aston- 
ishment. 

Georgia felt silly, and giggled. Muriel, torn 
between her adoration of anything named 
King, and her dislike of Monkey, showed signs 
of weeping. Mary May and Esther were 
plainly stunned, Madeleine delighted. It re- 
mained for Blanche Black, who had somehow 
come to consider Monkey as her own property, 
and so was just plain mad, to jeer! 

She pointed one finger at the two under the 
apple trees, and began in her high clear voice 


Six Routed Lady Detectives 113 

a chant all children have heard and most of 
them used, 

“Monkey’s mad and I’m glad 

And I know what will please him; 

A chocolate-drop to make him hop 
And Teddy King to squeeze him!” 

Up to that moment Ted had been simply 
surprised at the invasion, not angry in the 
least. She didn’t see anything to be ashamed 
of in her friendship for Monkey, and would 
have admitted it to any one without a moment’s 
hesitation, if asked. She simply hadn’t talked 
about it, because she had never been used to 
discussing things she did with any one but her 
father, and she had discussed it at great length, 
with him, from the first. She hadn’t lived with 
other children. She didn’t know how nice they 
could be — and how very, very nasty, too ! 

Something in that old-time, common little 
doggerel, which was quite new to her, made 
her suddenly seethe with anger. 

She swept up parchesi board, dice, every- 


1 14 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

thing, and flung them full in the faces of the 
inquiring six. 

“Get away,” she screamed with a stamp of 
her foot. “You get away from that wall, or 
I — I'll have you arrested! You — you horrid, 
mean, low little spies !” 

There were six great gasps. Not one of the 
girls had been hit by Ted’s missiles, but all the 
heads vanished as if their owners had been 
bowled over like so many nine pins. There 
was a succession of thuds on the other side 
of the wall, a subdued murmur of voices, the 
sound of Blanche Black demanding a chance 
to “get square,” and then the rush of feet as 
the others prevailed, and Blanche was led for- 
cibly away. 

Only one sentence was borne back to the 
other two children during the retreat of the in- 
vading forces. Georgia Welles, always in- 
clined to be a little hysterical, had evidently 
“got ’em again,” as the children expressed it 
when she went into one of her laughing-crying 
fits. 


Six Routed Lady Detectives 1 1 5 

“I hope she never does come to school with 
us,” wailed Georgia. “Or that we ever have 
to see her any more, ’cause she’s a horrid thing 
— she isn’t any sort of a lady.” 

“Well,” said Monkey at last, drawing a long, 
deep breath, “what’s the matter with you, any- 
how? They didn’t mean anything! You cer- 
tainly have spilled the beans this time!” 

He had been a bit cross himself, at first sight 
of those six heads. He had been having a lot 
of fun, and no teasing, during this secret 
friendship with Ted, but he had fully expected 
that it would be found out before long — had 
in fact been astonished to think discovery had 
not come much sooner than it had. 

To tell the truth, he had rather suspected 
Esther’s detective work. He had been appalled 
at what had happened. But no more than he 
was at what had happened next. For the Lady 
Ted sank down on the ground before him, and 
burst into tears! Ted — his glorious tomboy 
friend — Ted who could bear any amount of 
pain without flinching, who was afraid of noth- 


n6 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

ing Monkey had yet discovered — Ted was cry- 
ing! 

“You g-g-go away, too,” she sobbed, “I’m 
all wrong. I can’t make friends — I don’t de- 
serve any — she was right. I'm not a lady. I 
want to go back to my father. Oh, why did 
they all look so, and why did that horrid girl 
say those nasty things ?” 

“Why, that ain’t nothing,” said Monkey, for- 
getting his grammar in his perplexity. 
“Everyone gets those yelled after ’em now and 
then. Say, look here, Ted, you just listen to 
me,” and Monkey’s dark face grew very seri- 
ous. “Don’t you send me away. And don’t 
you go away yourself. You’ve got an awful 
lot to learn about kids, and you ought to learn 
it. Don’t you be a quitter. You’re too queer, 
and you’ve got to get like folks. You stay here 
and go to school, and I’ll stand by you, and 
you’ll never be sorry you did it, I know. 
Everything will come right yet.” 

Monkey was much in earnest, but poor Ted 
was very angry at herself, very sad and sore. 


Six Routed Lady Detectives 117 

“I can’t/’ she wailed, “I’m too different. I’m 
going right straight back to my father, if I 
have to run away. I never want to see King’s 
Town again, never, never, never.” 

She meant it, too. But none of us ever know 
the things in store for us, and poor Ted’s plans 
were all upset before she had the least chance 
to carry them out — upset in a very tragic man- 
ner. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE BIG WOODS SHIELD ANOTHER TRAGEDY 

Great and serious events were hanging over 
the head of the Little Lady of the Manor. 
Much worse things than the disapproval of 
Monkey or the dislike of the West Hill girls 
were to come to her very soon. 

She and Monkey had quarreled before they 
separated that day in the orchard. He had 
called her a quitter, and, if Ted wasn’t used to 
children or their ways, she at least knew what 
that meant, and resented it deeply. 

As for the six girls, their opinion of her 
was loudly spoken, and not pleasantly put. It 
is not nice to have things thrown at your head, 
whether they hit you or whether they don’t, and 
neither is it nice to be called names — espe- 
cially when you feel you do not deserve them. 

The girls had merely been curious. They 
118 


Big Woods Shield Another Tragedy 119 

hadn’t meant to be naughty, and even their 
fathers and mothers, who, of course, heard the 
whole story soon, didn’t think they had been. 

Mrs. Johns, who was much like Muriel, 
sighed deeply, and said she “wouldn’t have 
thought it of a King.” Mrs. Black, who spoke 
her mind more freely than most ministers’ 
wives are allowed to do, said Blanche had been 
bad, but Theodora King had been worse, and 
she was glad the Kings didn’t send her to their 
Sunday school. Good-natured .Mrs. Welles 
said Theodora didn’t mean it, wise Mrs. 
Pressly refused to discuss the matter with any- 
body, and prim, quiet Mrs. Barrows told every- 
one she was “shocked — shocked” in a tone that 
made Monkey, who overheard her say it a 
dozen times at least, long to shock her into ab- 
solute silence. 

Three days passed, and he did not see Ted. 
She sent down the most formal of “Not at 
home” messages, by a grinning maid, when 
poor Monkey screwed up courage to call, and 
he fled. But he well knew she was trying to 


120 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

make good her threat to go back to her father. 
“Running away like a coward,” as Monkey 
wrathfully put it. 

Old Mr. King, much puzzled by this latest 
prank of his granddaughter, sent for Monkey, 
questioned him, and was so unexpectedly kindly 
and understanding about it all, that Monkey 
told him the whole story of the summer. He 
explained Ted’s first dread of the children, her 
first unlucky runaway, which Mr. King had 
never heard the truth about before, their own 
friendship, and the way she had longed to make 
up with the others, though she had not been 
able to do it. 

“But she made up with you — she wasn’t 
afraid of you,” said the old gentleman, scowling 
at Monkey in the way Monkey had discovered 
wasn’t really scowling at all. 

“Oh, yes,” he answered. “But then I’m 
kind of different myself, you know. I haven’t 
got on with the other kids so very well myself. 
They — they think I’m awful tough.” And he 
gave Mr. King a glance, half shame-faced, half 


Big Woods Shield Another Tragedy 121 

proud, that made the old gentleman explode in 
a great roar of laughter. 

“Oh, they do, do they?” he asked at last. 
“You’re tough, and my granddaughter is a 
snob and a spitfire, according to them, and a 
quitter according to you. Precious pair you 
two make, I’m sure.” 

He laughed again, but it was rather a bitter 
laugh this time, and Monkey thought he un- 
derstood why. He grew red, but stuck to his 
guns. 

“I said she zvould be a quitter,” he insisted, 
“if she doesn’t stay and see this thing out. 
She can make every kid in town like her. 
She’s a perfectly dandy girl, Mr. King. I 
didn’t know a girl could be so nice. She’s — 
why she’s as fine as a boy in lots of ways. She 
isn’t a snob and she isn’t a spitfire, and I want 
her to stay here and prove it to everybody !” 

Mr. King suddenly leaned over and grasped 
Monkey’s hand. “So do I, son,” he said in a 
man-to-man fashion that won Monkey’s heart. 
“And I’ll do my best to keep her here, if you’ll 


122 Lady Teddy Conies to Town 

do your best to help her through the hard times 
ahead.” 

“Sure,” said Monkey, fervently, and the two 
“shook on the deal” like old comrades. 

“I don’t mind telling you,” said the old gentle- 
man, “that she’s been having a pretty miser- 
able time lately. I caught her twice all packed 
up and ready to go off by herself. She’s 
promised, though, that she won’t do that, but 
she’s been moping by herself over in the Big 
Woods. You most likely know her pet places 
there better than I do, so go along now, and 
make up with her, and bring her home, and I’ll 
be obliged to you forever. I’ll write the whole 
story to her father. He’ll see a way out better 
than I. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea for 
her to run out to see him for a bit — vacation for 
them both. Well, well, we’ll see.” 

The shadow had fallen over his face which 
always came there when he spoke or thought 
of his helpless son. 

“All right,” said Monkey uneasily, and hur- 
ried away. 


Big Woods Shield Another Tragedy 123 

It had been very hot all the morning. Now, 
in the early afternoon, as he turned to cross the 
broad meadow that lay between the lawns of 
King's Wood and the Big Woods, Monkey 
sniffed at the air and shook his head. 

“Smells like thunder/’ he said to himself. 
“Ted ’d better look out or she’ll get soaked. 
Hope she didn’t go far. Wonder where I’d 
better look?” 

Ted had no special places in the Big Woods, 
except the Black Pool. They hadn’t gone in 
there often. They had been delighted with 
their play-place in the orchard, and then, be- 
sides, in the queer underground way in which 
boys hear things, Monkey had got an idea that 
the Big Woods was no longer a very safe place 
to take a girl. Had he known that Ted was in 
the habit of going there alone, he would have 
warned her or her people. 

Never, in other times, had the Big Woods 
been anything but dark and damp and peace- 
ful. But this summer there had been a wild 
and lawless lot of men creeping in among the 


124 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Mill people. Work had been heavy, extra 
hands needed, and neither Mr. Harris nor his 
foremen had had time to pick and choose as 
carefully as usual from the applicants for work. 

The town had been kept quiet. But Monkey 
had heard whispers that there were wild doings 
sometimes in the deep heart of the Big Woods. 
Once, quite recently, while prowling about an 
old sugarhouse that stood on the far north 
edge of the tract, he had looked in and seen to 
his astonishment a pile of dirty bedding, a box 
set up like a table, and a quantity of broken 
bottles lying all about. He had started to in- 
vestigate, when a voice from the bedding said, 
“Who’s there?” so fiercely that Monkey had 
shrunk back in the underbrush, and kept still 
as a mouse while heavy footsteps went to the 
door of the building, and prowled around out- 
side a bit. Monkey had used all his Indian 
wile in getting away, and next day had taken 
Tom and Barry and Bud back with him, to 
find the place deserted of everything but the 
broken bottles and the box. But they heard 


Big Woods Shield Another Tragedy 125 

on their way home that the Sheriff had found 
a lot of tramps in that sugarhouse, and made 
them move off, and felt very venturesome, and 
wondered why they hadn’t had the luck to go 
over with the Sheriff. For some reason Mon- 
key had not told Ted of this adventure. He 
wished now that he had. Why hadn’t Mr. 
King heard of these things, too? If he had, 
surely he would have told Ted to keep away 
from the Big Woods altogether. The more 
Monkey thought of his playmate's being in 
there alone, the more uneasy he grew, till at last 
he broke into a run, and dashed panting here 
and there among the trees. He called, he 
looked about sharply. It was possible Ted was 
still “mad,” and might not answer. He must 
not miss the chance flutter of skirts or hair 
ribbons. But he had neither sight nor sound 
of her. He pressed on till he came to the 
Black Pool, and stopped upon the beach where 
he and Ted had first met. “Teddy,” he called, 
“0-0-0-h, T-e-e-d!” 

Not that he really expected to find her here, 


126 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

as the first glance had shown him no sign of 
her. The banks of the Pool were as clean 
cut as the sides of a bowl, save across from 
him, where the rocks began. And Ted had 
had her lesson on those rocks. She had tried 
to reach the opening where she fancied the 
cave might be one day, against his wish, and 
had slipped on the slimy stones and might have 
been badly hurt, had not Monkey rescued her. 
She had given up exploring the place since then 
— he was certain she wouldn't go there alone 
in any case. But there was a slight echo just 
here, and Monkey stood and called over and 
over again, to hear it. Then he turned and 
went away, going home by another path, call- 
ing, looking, every step of the way, in vain. 

By the time he reached King's Wood he was 
anxious. He laughed at himself for feeling 
so frightened. Ted was a sturdy, clever, level- 
headed girl, quite capable of taking care of 
herself. It wasn't as if babyish Georgia or 
silly Muriel or even the rash, energetic Mary 
May had gone into the Big Woods and van- 


Big Woods Shield Another Tragedy 127 

ished. But — shucks ! How did he know 
that Ted had vanished either? Very likely 
she’d pop out at him any minute now, or he’d 
come upon her in some pet corner about the 
place, make up their quarrel and have a romp 
before he went home. 

But — the summer-house was empty, so was 
the arbor. No slender figure lay curled in the 
depths of the big leather library chairs. The 
tower balcony, which Ted loved as well as 
Mary May loved it, was empty, and so was the 
attic. Monkey rapped on her door, and was 
met by utter silence. 

Not one of the servants had seen her, and 
Madam King called to him to send Theodora to 
her immediately — so she didn’t know where 
she was either. Monkey ran across the road 
and down through the half-wild garden of 
deserted King’s Croft to their tent under the 
trees. But it was empty. A spider web lay, 
unbroken, across the entrance. 

Though still telling himself that he was fool- 
ish, Monkey by this time was thoroughly 


128 Lady. Teddy Comes to Town 

frightened. He wanted to get word to Mr. 
King right away. But Miss Cordy couldn’t 
afford a telephone, old Mr. Barrows said he 
wouldn’t have one of the pesky things ting-a- 
lingling around his house, and Monkey hated 
to telephone such a message from the homes of 
any of the other neighbors. So he started at 
a run for the Mills. At last luck was with 
him. 

As he dashed past the Soldiers’ Monument, 
panting, he saw the great brown car of the 
Kings sweep up the village street, and raced 
to stop it as it turned off up the road to the 
East Hill. 

Old Mr. King saw him, called to the driver, 
and pulled Monkey in beside him with a laugh. 

“Well, son,” he said, “everything all right? 
Coming back up the hill to smoke the pipe of 
peace at our dinner table?” 

“No,” said Monkey, “I haven’t seen Ted, 
Mr. King. I can’t find her anywhere. And 
— I — I’m scared about it. I’ve hunted every- 
where.” 


Big Woods Shield Another Tragedy 129 

Mr. King’s dense brows drew down. “Any 
one else know she’s missing?” 

“No, sir — I wouldn’t tell any one till I told 
you.” 

“Fine boy,” said the old man. The great car 
swung up the hill and to the gates of King’s 
Wood. 

“Find Miss Theodora,” the old gentleman 
said shortly. “Send her to the library immedi- 
ately.” 

And he and Monkey went in and waited. 
They could hear the scurry of feet, then voices 
calling, and at last, when neither man nor boy 
felt he could wait another instant, a white- 
faced maid came to the door. 

“Please, sir,” she said, “we can’t find Miss 
Ted. Nobody’s seen her since lunch.” 

Then things flew. Somebody went to see if 
Ted had broken her word, and really tried to 
leave town by train. Every possible store and 
house, from the Barrows’ to the Truppos’, was 
tried. Men ranged the Big Woods shouting, 
beating the underbrush. 


130 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

The thunder storm which Monkey had fore- 
told came. Never had there been huger 
crashes of thunder, but they sent no Lady Ted 
scurrying for home. Never had there been 
more vivid lightning, but it showed no small 
figure running for shelter, or waiting beneath 
some protecting tree. 

They had but one clue. Old Madam King's 
maid had seen Miss Ted start across the field 
towards the Big Woods. 

“just to-day," groaned Mr. King, “I heard 
rumors about those woods. I was going to for- 
bid her going there again. You heard those 
rumors, son?" 

“Yes," said Monkey. “I wondered — I 
thought you knew." 

“Those who ought to know, never are told," 
said the old man bitterly. “I'm afraid now it 
is too late." 

It was. After dark autos raced up and down 
the country roads, seeking a lost child. The 
Big Woods were alive with lanterns, big elec- 
tric torches, automobile lamps. 


Big Woods Shield Another Tragedy 131 

Midnight came — dawn — full morning. The- 
odora King was lost. No trace of her had 
been found, no sight of her had been seen ! 


CHAPTER X 


A KNIGHT TO THE RESCUE 

At first, the only fear that any one in all 
King’s Town openly expressed, was that Ted 
had wandered away by herself, fallen, or met 
with some accident, and would be found hurt 
— perhaps unconscious. 

But as the hours of that first terrible night 
drew to a close, other rumors began to spread. 
The men who were searching the roads and 
woods and farms grew whiter and sterner, the 
women, left at home, brooded more carefully 
than ever above their own little ones, and those 
nearest and dearest to the lost child grew fran- 
tic with terror. 

It was late morning, however, before any one 
learned the real truth. As many had begun 
to fear, Theodora King had been kidnapped! 
She was being held for ransom! 

As soon as it was known, the news spread 
132 


133 


A Knight to the Rescue 

fast — through the south end of town, where 
the big quiet homes of the old King’s Town 
families stood, through the north end, where 
many little houses crowded under the shadow 
of the great Mills, and up to the West Hill, 
where stood the trim new homes of the children 
that should have been Theodora’s best friends 
— the children who to-day had forgotten every- 
thing they ever had against her, and were 
grieving desperately over her loss. 

All the other children of the town were safe 
— so far. But where was this one little girl 
who, as the only child of the proud East Hill, 
had seemed to have so many of the best things 
the world can give? 

Grown people and children shuddered as 
they thought of her that day. 

The news had reached old Mr. King through 
the morning’s mail. It was written in a letter 
— a letter on thin cheap paper, badly spelled by 
some one who did not know English very well. 
It said that Theodora King had been stolen the 
afternoon before, and been taken to a safe place 


134 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

where she would never be found. She was 
alive and comfortable, but her family would 
never see her again until the men who held her 
had been paid twenty thousand dollars. The 
Kings had a great deal of money. Too much 
money. They should be glad to see poor men 
get a little of it ! They must have the money 
in packages of bills. The bills must be so they 
would be easy to carry, and no single bill must 
be over one hundred dollars or under fifty. 
On Saturday afternoon Mr. King would hear, 
through the mail, the way in which this money 
was to be delivered. That left Thursday and 
Friday for the gathering of such a large sum. 
If everything went as the kidnappers com- 
manded, Miss King would be at home safe and 
sound on Sunday morning. If not — 

The letter ended with that line of ominous 
dashes. Everyone in town shuddered when 
they heard of them. What was the dreadful 
thing which might happen to bright, pretty lit- 
tle Ted, if everything did not turn out well? 
If the money was not forthcoming? Not that 


A Knight to the Rescue 135 

anybody doubted but what it would be. The 
Kings truly did have a great deal, and this 
child was worth much more than the sum that 
was asked, to those who loved her. But — 
argued the mothers of King’s Town — if they 
had it to pay, other people did not. And if this 
kidnapping was successfully carried out, what 
child for miles around was safe? 

To the venturesome children, one of the 
worst things that happened was the way in 
which they were all shut up within their homes 
that first day. Georgia and Muriel were de- 
lighted to be kept close — they would not have 
ventured out alone for worlds. Muriel, in- 
deed, refused even to bring in the milk from 
the top step of the back porch, without having 
her mother or Madeleine at hand. 

But Madeleine herself, and above all Mary 
May and Blanche and even prim, though cour- 
ageous, Esther, felt dreadfully at being bot- 
tled up tight during such exciting times, while 
the boys took every risk and stood every pun- 
ishment for the sake of being free. 


136 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Old Miss Montrell showed herself wiser than 
Monkey had thought possible. Monkey had 
his liberty. She knew very well he would have 
it anyway, besides which she was certain every- 
one knew she had no money to spare. And 
— she was sorry for Monkey. She had 
learned of late a good deal about the secret 
friendship he and Ted had had all summer, and 
it had pleased her. Though she wasn’t fond 
of the boy, she was glad to see him enjoy him- 
self, especially with so desirable a friend. 
When he had told her Ted was lost, the night 
before, she had been sorry for him, had said 
in a burst of confidence that he might take the 
key to the side door, and stay out, hunting for 
Theodora as long as necessary. She had even 
failed for once to scowl at other friends, of 
whom she did not think so much — friends 
whom she actively disliked. For Rocco and 
Dominick were with Monkey. The children 
at the north end of town were not kept at home. 
There are some advantages in being poor. 
Like old Miss Cordy, the mothers, there, were 


A Knight to the Rescue 137 

certain that there was little danger for their 
boys and girls. So, though they tended their 
babies more carefully than ever, their older 
ones were free, and Dominick and Rocco had 
hastened to join Monkey when the news of 
Ted’s disappearance first reached them. 

For the Truppos and Pavesis were in deep 
despair. In both families the Lady Ted had 
been well loved. After the accident on the 
Fourth, was it not she who had brought all 
the beautiful new clothes and the wonderful 
doll to little Angelina? Had she not taken all 
the children from both families for rides in her 
great auto? Had she not paid the doctor to 
straighten the badly crossed eyes of little Peter 
Pavesi, and cure the rheumatism of Grand- 
mother Truppo? Did not all of them enjoy 
her visits, and love her for her own pretty, 
bright, generous self? 

All the Mill folk had grown to like Miss 
Theodora. She had captured their hearts, and 
kept them, whether she had made friends on 
the West Hill or not, and the men from the 


138 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Mills had hunted all night, and the women had 
cried to think of her in danger. 

Everything in town seemed to stop that next 
day. The smoke poured as usual from the 
rows of tall chimneys over at the Mills, but 
little real work was done there. The streets 
were full of people, yet they were silent streets. 
Everyone spoke in whispers. Detectives from 
the city had been sent for, and after they had 
stepped from the train, and been whirled away 
up the East Hill to hear the whole story, little 
bands of men who had been hunting through 
the country came in and sat about waiting for 
further orders. No one knew what could be 
done next. Every inch of the village, the 
farms, the woods and fields had been gone over, 
without a trace or a clue to the missing child 
having come to light. She might have van- 
ished through the touch of a fairy’s wand, 
so completely and mysteriously had she gone. 

“Bad luck’s after the Kings again,” said 
many of the old townsfolk. And the stories 
Mary May had told were repeated again and 


A Knight to the Rescue 139 

again. It was not a lucky family ! Other chil- 
dren who had vanished — the two girls of an 
older generation, the two sons who had left 
home — had never been heard from. Many 
were sure Theodora would never be seen again 
either. 

And then, when everyone in town was at 
the very depths of sorrow and despair, there 
came a rumor — there was a clue! Somebody 
knew at least who had done the deed! The 
identity of the kidnappers was known — that 
was something! It wasn’t such a mysterious 
thing after all! The men could be traced — 
perhaps the child would be found quickly, the 
men arrested! 

Faces looked happier, and somebody even 
started a cheer — and for the second time that 
summer, the cheer was for a small person who 
had hitherto been rather neglected, if not de- 
spised, by most of the people in town. A per- 
son who had leaped to very sudden prominence. 

For the clue to the kidnappers of the Lady 
Ted had been found by Monkey Morley! 


CHAPTER XI 


THE HUNT FOR THE LADY TED 

It came about in this way. Monkey had 
been the first to discover that Ted was really 
gone. He had already, before he reported her 
disappearance to her grandfather, hunted for 
her in all the places where he could imagine her 
to be. After that, he had gone home to re- 
port to Miss Cordelia and then been out hunt- 
ing all night. So on Thursday morning, it had 
been a very sad and weary small boy who 
dragged his wet and muddy feet across the rugs 
of the big library at King’s Wood. 

He had come to say that he had found noth- 
ing new, and to ask if anybody else had a clue 
to the whereabouts of his lost playmate. At 
that time, nobody had. The letter from the 
kidnappers had not as yet been delivered. 

He talked a little with white-faced, haggard 
140 


The Hunt for the Lady Ted 141 

Mr. King, and then insisted that he wasn’t a 
bit sleepy, though he was tired. But Mr. King 
was called to the telephone, and in the silence 
of the big room Monkey’s head nodded down 
and down, till it rested at last on the soft up- 
holstered arm of the big chair in which he sat, 
his weary feet curled themselves up on the seat, 
and when the old gentleman came back, he 
found the boy sound asleep and hadn’t the heart 
to wake him, even to send him to a more com- 
fortable bed — so utterly weary did he seem. 
Monkey wasn’t very big, and the chair was. 
He really rested very comfortably, so Mr. King 
simply threw a rug over him and wheeled him 
out of the way, into a dark corner, forgetting all 
about him through the stress and excitement 
of the day. 

So it was that Monkey slept there in the li- 
brary for many hours, and woke finally, still 
drowsy, to wonder at the hum of heavy voices 
near him. There he lay, half awake, half 
asleep, thinking his bed seemed odd and his 
clothes queer. Why — he even had his shoes 


142 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

on! What wouldn’t Cousin Cordy do when 
she caught him ! And then suddenly he heard 
a few words which brought everything back 
to him in a flash. He remembered the why and 
the where of everything now, and realized that 
he was hearing the detectives that had been 
sent for talking things over with Mr. King and 
his manager, Mr. Harris. 

For a few minutes he lay there listening, so 
comfortable he still hated to move, and so it was 
that he first heard of the letter that had been 
sent. Benson, in charge of the four detectives 
who had come down, was reading it aloud. 

Monkey lay there breathless in his corner 
as he listened to the ominous words. A great 
fear for Ted came over him, and when Benson 
told of those sinister dashes at the end, his eyes 
filled with tears. 

And then far, far back in his brain, a mem- 
ory began to stir. Something important that 
might help him now seemed trying to work its 
way up from the bottom of his brain. 

Suddenly, something in the way in which 


The Hunt for the Lady Ted 143 

he lay there, listening to the voices of men, 
brought back to him another scene. A scene 
on a warm summer’s night when he had lain 
hidden, as now, and listened to men talking to- 
gether. Why, then one of the voices had used 
some of the very words he had just heard read 
out from that letter! 

Into the serious, busy little group gathered 
about Mr. King, there suddenly leaped a small 
boy. A boy with torn and muddy clothes and 
thick tousled hair, wild black eyes and a white, 
excited face. He was stuttering in his haste 
to try to say something. 

“Here, here, what’s all this?” boomed Mc- 
Cormick, the biggest of the detectives, mak- 
ing a grab at the apparition, and holding so 
firmly by Monkey’s waist-band, that the boy 
felt like a fly on a pin. 

“This is my granddaughter’s friend, Mon- 
trell Hamilton Morley, who has done us great 
service in the search for her already,” said Mr. 
King, formally. “Tell us, Montrell — what is 
it?” 


144 Lady Teddy Comes to Tozun 

“I — I believe I know who stole Ted — or at 
least who started it,” cried Monkey. “I just 
remembered something, back there, when I 
woke up and heard you talking. Last Fourth 
of July I was awfully tired and I went into the 
summer-house to rest and watch the fireworks, 
and there were two men outside who talked. 
One of them I didn’t recognize, but the other 
I knew right away. He had a queer, husky 
voice. He was a fellow named Paul, who’d 
been boarding at the Pavesis’, where I’d seen 
him once or twice, and talked to him. They 
were talking about how much money the Kings 
had; and Paul said they had too much — too 
much for so few people to have now — much too 
much for one girl. And he said if they weren’t 
willing to give it to poor people, it should be 
taken from them. And he said he knew a way 
to do it. Don’t you see? Some of the very 
words of that letter!” 

The detectives nodded agreement, much in- 
terested. “You’re very likely right,” said 


The Hunt for the Lady Ted 145 

Benson, and McCormick asked, “Can you de- 
scribe the man, sonny ?” 

“Oh, yes/’ answered Monkey. “Easy. 
He’s very small — not much bigger than me, and 
I’m not quite twelve yet! But he isn’t young 
— he’s awfully old. ’Most forty, I guess. 
He’s got wrinkles and white in his hair. He’s 
thin, too, but awfully strong. Dominick and 
Rocco are awfully husky kids, but he could 
manage them both just as easy! And he had 
queer hands. Very hairy, and the four fingers 
all pretty much the same length. He played the 
guitar a lot and I watched him.” 

“I should say you did,” said Benson approv- 
ingly. “With a description like that I ought 
to trace him easily.” 

And McCormick added, “You’ve sure got 
a head on your shoulders,” with a smile that 
made Monkey forgive him for that “sonny.” 
Monkey despised being called “sonny.” 

“Come along with us — we want to see these 
Pavesis,” said Benson. “What sort of folks 
are they?” 


146 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

'They're sure to be all right. Some of our 
oldest people, honest and hard working," spoke 
up Mr. Harris. 

"And devoted to my granddaughter. They 
will do all they can to help us," added Mr. 
King. 

"I should say they would," asserted Monkey 
loyally. "The boys were out helping hunt her 
— Mr. Pavesi, too. The whole family loves 
her. Why — everybody over at the Mills would 
do anything to help!" 

McCormick rose with a gruff, "Come along." 
But Benson, an older, slighter man, with 
shrewd but kindly blue eyes, said, "Wait a bit. 
This boy looks pretty white. Had any din- 
ner, youngster?" 

"Why — no," said Monkey. "And I was so 
sleepy, I guess I forgot my breakfast, too. 
But I don’t mind. We’ve got to find Ted. I’m 
ready." 

"More haste, less speed," said Benson, smil- 
ing at him. "I think Mr. King can get some- 
thing for you to eat, while we do a little more 


The Hunt for the Lady Ted 147 

work right here. This chap answer the de- 
scription of any of your hands, Mr. King?” 

“He didn’t work at the Mills,” cried Monkey. 
“Mrs. Pavesi said he couldn’t be a good man 
because he didn’t work anywhere and she told 
him he’d have to leave her house — just lately. 
But there are lots of new men, and he knew ’em, 
and they liked him. I bet he was the fellow 
who started that old sugarcamp business, up 
in the Big Woods.” 

“Right again,” said McCormick. And then 
a maid appeared with a tray and Monkey real- 
ized just how hungry he was, and pitched in, 
while he listened to the things the detectives 
asked, the orders they gave, the suggestions 
that they made. It was hugely interesting. 
Monkey felt that, after he had gone to China 
and rescued his father, he would come back to 
America and become a detective. 

Two of the detectives were to go down and 
apply for work at the Mills, hoping to get news 
of the kidnappers through the men there, 
though Mr. Harris and Mr. King were certain 


148 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

that none of their employees were to blame, 
while Mr. Benson and Mr. McCormick went 
off with Monkey, when he had finished his meal 
and cleaned himself up a little. 

But there was a disappointment in store for 
them. Mr. and Mrs. Pavesi could not help 
very much in the search for Paul — Paul Mor- 
elli, as they said he was named. He had come 
to them saying he knew friends of theirs in 
Italy, and there being a vacant bed in the 
boarders’ room, he had taken it. They had 
liked him well enough. He had been good to 
the children and made beautiful music. Only 
Grandmother Pavesi had not liked him at all, 
and hobbled out now to say so, very decidedly. 
She had said that he had the “evil eye” and had 
persuaded her daughter-in-law to get rid of 
him. She was now willing to say, “I told you 
so,” in both good Italian and bad English. 

He had been gone from his room there two 
weeks. He had paid his bills, though he did 
little work. He had friends at the Mills — but 
not close friends. The entire family set their 


The Hunt for the Lady Ted 149 

wits to work, trying to remember the names of 
the men their boarder had known. 

The two detectives, with Monkey, climbed 
up — to the big clean loft where there were four 
narrow spotless beds for the Pavesi boarders. 
There was the bed that had been Morelli’s — but 
not a trace had he left behind him! 

“The other men, good men — old men — they 
no like Paul,” said Mrs. Pavesi. “Only we all 
like him when he make music. Signorita 
Theodora, too.” 

“She knew him?” cried Benson. 

“Ah, yes — she came twice when he was here, 
and he played for her and she liked him and his 
music well,” sobbed Mrs. Pavesi, her apron to 
her eyes, as she thought of the trouble her be- 
loved Signorita was in now. Whereat the 
baby began to cry too, and so did Grandmother 
Pavesi, and little Angelina and Mrs. Truppo, 
from next door. 

The men began to beat a hasty retreat. Ben- 
son stopped to say, “Remember — any little 
thing you can remember about this man, or 


150 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

the smallest thing you can find that ever was 
his, may help us to bring back your Signorita 
Theodora.” 

“Anything that was his?” questioned Mrs. 
Truppo. “Wait, then.” She ran into her own 
home, and came out quickly with a pile of 
papers, at sight of which Angelina began to 
howl even harder than she was howling already. 

“You will give them for your Signorita — 
for your beloved Signorita,” said Mrs. Truppo. 
“All of us would give more than that for her. 
Are they of any help, Signor?” 

The papers were pictures, rudely drawn and 
colored with cheap watercolors, to amuse a lit- 
tle child. It did not seem that they could help. 
And yet after a moment Benson looked from 
them to McCormick’s face, and the big man 
nodded solemnly. 

“Yes,” he said, “they may be of much good. 
Thank you. Try to find other things. And 
here’s a dime, little girl. Buy a real picture 
book. We need these pictures, but you can. 
have more. Good-by.” 


The Hunt for the Lady Ted 15 1 

And they went off, leaving a much comforted 
baby and a group of excited women. 

But — the men were excited too! For the 
paper on which these pictures were drawn, was 
the same on which the letter of the kidnappers 
had been written, evidently torn from the same 
cheap pad, and the words, “A Dog/' “A Cat/' 
“A Horse,” though printed, were done in blue 
indelible pencil — and that letter had been writ- 
ten in blue indelible pencil too ! 

Benson patted Monkey's shoulder. “It's 
your Paul all right,” he said. “Now for a look 
at these Big Woods. Come along, comrade. 
We’ll have you in our profession before long 
— eh, Mac?” and the big man nodded and 
grinned approvingly at the boy. 

Sad as Monkey was, he was excited and 
happy in a sort of way, too. He was the friend 
and co-worker of the best detectives the big 
city could send down ! He had helped them al- 
ready! He was going to help them more! 
As the auto in which they sat drove down Main 
Street, it passed the three Pressly boys and 


152 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Bud and Barry and 'Tow Wow,” all drawn up 
in an excited, curious line along the curb. 
Every eye stared at Monkey enviously. Every 
head gave a respectful nod — when Monkey re- 
turned it, little Phil Pressly actually tipped his 
cap! Farther on was Cousin Cordy, and she 
smiled as she nodded at him, looking happier 
than she had for months — as if she really liked 
him a little ! And this on a day when he had 
not been at home to feed her chickens, and had 
had to neglect his own rabbits ! He hoped she 
had fed the rabbits. He rather felt she had, 
somehow. Cousin Cordy might be all right — 
if she’d only try to understand a boy ! 

Then the auto shot up East Hill, and Monkey 
had no thoughts except of Ted. 

He led the men along the paths Ted generally 
took, but they shook their heads. 

"We can’t find anything here,” said McCor- 
mick angrily. "Everything’s been tramped 
over a hundred times. Where’s your Black 
Pool ? I understand they’ve dragged it ? 
Nothing found?” 


The Hunt for the Lady Ted 153 

“No,” said Monkey, and led them out on to 
the little beach where he had first seen the Lady 
Ted on that June day not six weeks before. 

Monkey pointed out everything of interest — 
told them everything he could think of. He 
even showed them the spot at which you could 
get an echo back from the rocks, and yelled, 
“Ted, 0-0-0-h, Ted,” at the top of his lungs to 
show them. The echo worked beautifully, but 
that helped none, and they tramped away to the 
deserted sugarhouse. Somebody had been 
living there recently — since the Sheriff had 
“cleaned it out,” the detectives were certain. 

It was two weeks since he had sent off the 
tramps found there, but here were ashes which, 
Benson said, had been warm the day before, 
and searching outside they found bits of food 
carefully buried under the leaves, food which 
was not spoiled. 

“Men were living here yesterday morning,” 
said Benson. “And our men, too,” added Mc- 
Cormick excitedly, as he came plunging back 
from a trip out into some dense underbrush. 


154 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

He held up a scrap of paper which had fluttered 
far out there, and been unnoticed, or forgotten. 

Their men, sure enough ! The paper was a 
torn bit of what had evidently been the first 
draft of the letter to Mr. King! 

“It’s my guess,” said McCormick, “that they 
can't be far away, and they have her nearby, 
too. I don’t believe she’s out of these very 
woods.” 

“My idea exactly,” said Benson. “Any 
other hiding places, kid?” But Monkey shook 
his head. There were, but nothing that hadn’t 
been already examined by the home searchers, 
a dozen times over. Nothing secret or safe 
enough to hide Theodora now ! 

“There must be,” said Benson grimly. 
“There must be, though we’ll ask about strange 
autos or carts seen on the roads, and question 
conductors on all the trains and suburban cars.” 

They tramped back to their waiting motor. 
It was nearly night, and Monkey was sent 
home, cleverly dodging the round-eyed, eager 
Esther, who had camped on the Montrell side 


The Hunt for the Lady Ted 155 

of her own mansion all day, hoping for news. 
Friday morning Monkey was on hand again, so 
early that the cook at the Kings’ offered him 
breakfast, and Monkey, sniffing bacon and see- 
ing waffles, forgot his own meager bowl of oat- 
meal and ate quantities. 

But there was a disappointment ahead. The 
postmaster himself came panting up the hill 
with a letter that had been mailed during the 
night. It was on that same cheap paper, writ- 
ten with that same pencil, and it said that unless 
the detectives from the city were sent away, 
Ted would never be heard from again. They 
must go, and the writer would know whether 
they really left or not! Money was wanted, 
but not money without safety ! The detectives 
must go ! 


CHAPTER XII 


THE LITTLE OLD WOMAN IN BLACK 

“I was afraid of this very thing,” said Ben- 
son, with a frown, as he studied that second 
letter. “We tried our best to get in here 
quietly, but goodness — you can’t keep anything 
in a town this size ! Everybody knows every- 
thing! Our gentleman evidently has friends 
on the lookout for him. I wish we could find 
out who mailed this letter.’’ 

That, however, was impossible. Many, 
many people had dropped letters through the 
little slit in the post office door, unnoted. “We 
must have a watch there right along after this,” 
said McCormick. “These letters were both 
mailed at night. We’ve got to watch and fol- 
low the fellow who mails them.” 

“But it can’t be you,” said Mr. King, firmly. 
“You must both go. I don’t dare risk my 
156 


The Little Old Woman in Black 15 7 

granddaughter’s life. I’d rather pay any 
amount of money — any amount at all !” 

“Yes, I understand,” said Benson. “But 
neither can you be left alone. We’ve discov- 
ered a good deal already. So much, that if it 
weren’t for these letters, I’d swear our man 
was doing the business all by himself! We’ve 
found no intimates of his here. We’ve found 
he hasn’t any criminal record, and so has no 
criminal friends, most likely. He seems, too, 
to be a pretty well educated man — and they’re 
hardest to deal with. More brains to think 
things out. We’ll go, Mr. King. We’ll go on 
that noon train. But we must come back again 
by auto, later — we must.” 

“If you can keep hidden,” answered the old 
gentleman. “There must be nothing done that 
will endanger my Ted.” 

“I don’t believe she is in any physical dan- 
ger at all,” said Benson. “He’s too clever 
really to hurt her. On my word and honor, 
Mr. King, I don’t think you need fear that. 
He’s trying to bluff you. He’s scared. He 


158 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

isn’t as safe as he wishes he was. We’ll get 
her. He’s afraid we will, too.” 

Mr. King looked a little happier, but it was 
with a heavy heart that he watched the detec- 
tives go. The two men in the Mills were left 
behind. It didn’t seem possible that they could 
have been discovered, and they could be called 
upon if needed suddenly. 

Monkey Morley went to the station to see his 
idols, Benson and McCormick, off. All the 
other boys in town went, too, and a good many 
of the girls. Monkey was a hero among the 
children now. 

The boys stared in respectful awe and admi- 
ration, as they saw him chatting with the great 
men. And when Benson said, so all could hear 
him, (< l want a last word with you in private, 
youngster,” Monkey visibly swelled with melan- 
choly pride, while the others squirmed with 
envy. 

“We’ll be back after dark,” Benson whis- 
pered. “And we won’t go near the Kings. 
We’ll come to your house. You haven’t a dog 


The Little Old Woman in Black 159 

that eats tramps, have you? Well, don’t get 
one to-day. And keep your eyes open. Ears, 
too. You’re sharp, and you know the town 
and the country. I’m depending a lot on you. 
Remember — I’m pretty sure she’s in the Big 
Woods somewhere. Hang around there a bit 
on the quiet. But be careful. Don’t try any 
job that’s too big for you, or you’ll mess every- 
thing up. Get any news you can, but wait till 
we come back to do things. This Morelli’s a 
man nobody need be ashamed to be afraid of. 
Be afraid till we’re back. Good-by.” 

He laughed, as if he’d been merely joking 
with Monkey, waved his hand, and jumped on 
board the train just as it began to move. He 
moved so quickly that he nearly upset a little 
bowed old woman, in black gown and head 
handkerchief, who had been standing behind 
him. She was evidently one of the foreign 
born grandmothers from the Mill end of town, 
come down to bid somebody good-by. Monkey 
caught at the old lady, saved her from a fall, 
apologized for his friend’s haste, and then 


160 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

started off. He wanted to dodge Tom and 
Barry and the rest. He felt years older and 
wiser than they, and he wanted to get to work. 
He put up his hand and rubbed his arm. It 
hurt where the little old woman had clutched it, 
as she thought she was falling. She must be 
an awfully strong old person, and he thought, 
with a grin, that he was sorry for any small 
boys she spanked! Then a memory flashed 
into his mind that made him stop short. The 
old woman had had on black cotton gloves! 
Never before had he seen one of the old Mill 
women in gloves, unless maybe the weather was 
bitter cold ! Their gnarled old hands went un- 
covered month in and month out ! 

Why the memory of those gloves should have 
made him suddenly suspicious, he could not say, 
then or thereafter, but he started after her im- 
mediately, to look at her — maybe talk to her — 
again. 

It was too late! The little old woman had 
vanished utterly and completely — with a rapid- 
ity odd in one so old ! 


The Little Old Woman in Black 161 

And what fierce little black eyes she had had 
under her wisps of white hair! Young eyes, 
strong hands, an active body — yet bowed and 
whitened with age ! And those gloves ! 
Monkey had read a great many detective 
stories, good and bad, in his day, and he had a 
good memory, an active imagination and a 
quick brain. 

That old woman was queer, and she was 
worth watching! He went up to the station 
agent, who was a friend of his, and asked if he 
knew the little foreign old woman in black who 
had been there just now. 

“1 saw her/’ said the agent. “Queer old 
party. Been meeting the trains the last day or 
two, but nobody ever seems to come that she’s 
expecting. No, I don’t know her. Gloves? 
She didn’t wear any yesterday. I know be- 
cause right after those detective chaps came 
for the Kings, she came in here and got a drink. 
Everybody was after the detectives but her and 
me, and I was outside. But I could see just her 
hands through the window, and they were the 


i6 2 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

funniest looking hands for a woman — all hairy, 
like some men’s. It sort of astonished me, and 
I looked sharp when she came out, to be sure it 
was a woman.” 

“Was there anything funny about the fin- 
gers?” queried Monkey, breathlessly. “Were 
they all about the same length?” 

“Don’t know, kid, I hadn’t my yardstick 
handy,” said the agent with a grin. “Think 
you’ve got a clue? Forget it! Since those 
detectives struck town, we’ve got more clues 
here than we have people. Every soul has a 
dozen or so of his own. I wish some of them 
would work at that. It’s a bad business — a 
bad business.” And shaking his head, the 
agent went in to his telegraph instrument which 
was sending out impatient, tapping calls. 

Monkey walked away. He was as certain as 
if the old woman, stripped of gloves, skirt, ker- 
chief and white hair, had stood before him, that 
she was Paul Morelli in disguise. 

Maybe, after all, Morelli was “playing the 
game alone,” as Benson had thought. If he 


The Little Old Woman in Black 163 

had met all recent trains, as the station agent 
said the little old woman had done, he would not 
have needed any friend to tell him that the 
detectives had come. He would have found it 
out all for himself ! 

But, if Morelli was here, right in town, 
where, then, was the Lady Ted? Had she 
been sent far away to friends of Morelli’s, or 
was she, too, very near at hand ? 

Maybe the man would go from the train, 
straight to her hiding place ! At that thought, 
Monkey nearly went frantic. Why had he 
missed such a wonderful chance ? Why hadn’t 
his mind worked more quickly? 

He had been walking blindly forward as he 
thought, anywhere — nowhere — and now he 
stumbled, and looking up found himself at the 
edge of a little ravine. It was a ravine that led 
straight up into the heart of the Big Woods. 
And Benson firmly believed that Ted was hid- 
den in the Big Woods. 

Monkey remembered that he had never 
glanced in this direction, when looking for the 


164 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

little old woman in black. And yet it would 
have been very easy for her to step across the 
tracks behind the outgoing train, walk behind 
the freight house, and vanish into this ravine. 
It was, come to think of it, about the only way 
she could have vanished so quickly and com- 
pletely ! Why — she might be just ahead of him 
now! Monkey broke into a run, and then 
stopped short. Indians did not dash madly, 
noisily, after their enemies. Sherlock Holmes 
had studied every leaf and twig as he pursued 
the unfortunate criminals who crossed his path, 
and made no noise following them. The detec- 
tives in his blood and thunder stories that 
Cousin Cordy burned when she found them, 
were always “as noiseless as cats.” 

He, then, would be quiet too. So he held his 
impatience in check, and began picking his way 
slowly along the path at the bottom of the ra- 
vine. It was hard, but Monkey’s life had 
taught him to do hard things, and very soon his 
reward came. 


The Little Old Woman in Black 165 

He reached a place where recently there had 
been a “cave in” or landslide. Fresh earth and 
upturned stones made a barrier across the way. 
Also, they had dammed the tiny stream that 
wandered along the bottom of the ravine, till 
here it made a shallow muddy pool. Monkey, 
looking carefully at the soft edges of that pool, 
saw that somebody had passed that way re- 
cently, and in a great hurry ! 

Somebody had stood under the shelter of the 
rocks and evidently stamped about there, and 
there were other marks in the mud which the 
boy did not understand. Also, somebody else 
had climbed up over the rocks and earth, as he 
was doing now ! Somebody else, too, had wet 
his hands in the water that was trickling here 
and there — for right on the face of a rock that 
Monkey was about to cling to, as he climbed, 
was the fast drying mark of a wet hand! 

Monkey, absolutely motionless, stared at it 
till his black eyes felt strained and sore. For 
he could see that it had been an oddly shaped 


166 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

hand. The three bigger fingers were of almost 
the same length, and the little finger was ex- 
tremely long! 

He gasped with the excitement of his discov- 
ery. “If I was Sherlock Holmes now,” he 
thought, “or even Benson, I could save that 
mark somehow, so other folks could see it.” 
All of a sudden he felt that he was a very little 
boy, and all alone, and that he knew very, very 
little. Then he threw up his head bravely. 
He had seen the mark, anyhow! He knew 
whose it was, and he could still follow, though 
he must be more careful than ever. Benson 
had said that Morelli was a man no man need 
be ashamed to be afraid of, and had told him to 
be careful. 

As noiselessly as a little brown shadow 
Monkey slipped forward along the path 
through the ravine, one hand grasping the butt 
of a revolver in his pocket. It was an old, use- 
less revolver. He had known, even before he 
asked the hardware man’s advice, that it could 
never shoot again. But he had traded his 


The Little Old Woman in Black 167 

knife, five “brownies,” two cents and a lead 
pencil for it, not ten days before, and had been 
delighted with his bargain. It looked like a 
real gun to him — it might even to such a man as 
Morelli, if it were pointed at him ! Anyway, it 
felt very comforting under his fingers now. 

He searched carefully as he went on, but 
found no further trace of the man he was fol- 
lowing. 

Nowhere did he find a trace of Morelli’s 
clambering up the sides of the little gully, which 
was becoming dark now from the densely over- 
hanging branches of trees. He was in the Big 
Woods ! As he went on, the ravine grew more 
and more shallow, till at last it wasn’t a ravine 
at all any more, and Monkey found himself on 
the level of the forest. Monkey himself had 
crouched lower and lower, till now he was al- 
most flat on the ground. But he saw nothing, 
heard nothing, but the ordinary sights and 
noises of the woods. 

The Black Pool was not very far to his left. 
Quietly he wriggled his way through the under- 


1 68 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

brush to the bank. There was no beach here. 
He found himself crouching in the bushes, 
much nearer the marsh than he usually came. 
He was, in fact, very near the great black glis- 
tening rocks. There was no wind. Not a leaf 
stirred anywhere. It was noontime, when the 
little animals of the forest were quiet. There 
was simply the noise of the water as it washed 
over the rocks, and fell lazily down their sides 
into the marsh below. Something about those 
rocks fascinated Monkey to-day, as he knew 
they had always fascinated Ted. He had 
never looked at them so closely before. A long 
time he lay quiet, looking, listening, thinking, 
himself as quiet as the old fallen tree against 
which he lay, and as thickly hidden by the 
bushes. 

And so it was that, at last, through the dense 
silence, he heard a strange, exciting sound ! 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE THIRD NOTE 

During these last two days, Esther Barrows 
had enjoyed a popularity never hers before. It 
was particularly marked on this day, especially. 

Children who had always edged away from 
the big, pompous house where she lived, from 
her prim, quiet mother, her severe looking aunts 
and her big, silent old grandfather, now came 
to see her early, and stayed late. Esther her- 
self was very much flattered. Her mother was 
surprised, her aunts annoyed, her grandfather 
amused. He laughed and told his daughters to 
keep still, when they scolded about the “inde- 
cent curiosity of children.” “Let 'em alone," 
he boomed in his deep old voice. “You want 
to hear the news as much as they do — I want 
to hear it too. I want to talk to young Mon- 
trell myself. Fine boy. If I’d had my health, 

169 


170 Lady Teddy Comes to Toivn 

I’d have stuck my finger in Cordelia’s pie before 
this, and helped to bring him up. No wonder 
the other youngsters are hanging around for a 
look at him. Leave ’em alone.” 

For, of course, that was the truth of it all. 
The children were eager to see Monkey! To- 
day, the detectives had gone, and he ought to 
be at home to receive them ! They wanted the 
tale of his doings from his own lips — and no- 
where could he be found! It was very per- 
plexing. 

The girls, of course, could not go to his home 
and ask to see him. Ladies are not in the habit 
of visiting gentlemen at their homes. But it 
was quite all right for them to go to call upon 
their dear friend, Esther Barrows. 

And the boys, who could and did go up and 
ring, and ask for Monkey, could, when told by 
Miss Montrell that he was not at home, “go on 
over to the Barrows’ and wait awhile.” So 
they did it, and sat about in stiffer, better be- 
haved rows than they had ever sat in before. 

They waited hopefully through the later 


The Third Note 


171 

morning hours, and sighed when they went 
home to lunch. They came again in the after- 
noon, even Georgia and Muriel timidly join- 
ing them this time, though they had insisted 
upon Bud and Barry going before and behind 
as guards. The boys were willing enough. 
All parents forbade any going about alone these 
days, and even in groups the boys were not 
allowed to leave town. A cloud of terror over- 
hung the pretty, quiet village. 

But the afternoon was as wasted as the 
morning had been. Heartbroken, disap- 
pointed, the earnest seekers after excitement 
were forced to start home at last — with no 
news of their hero-friend. 

They would have been furious had they 
known that Monkey, shrewdly suspecting what 
might happen, had spied them from the shadow 
of the orchard, and made his way, under cover 
of the quince bushes, to the cellar door, entered 
it, and reached his own room in safety! His 
mind was very full. He wanted to think things 
ou t — he couldn’t talk to anyone! Even Miss 


172 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Cordelia had not suspected he was at home till 
she started down to get supper, and hearing a 
noise in his room, discovered him, fast asleep, 
and evidently dreaming exciting dreams, for he 
was fighting his pillow in his sleep, and giving it 
hard knocks, too ! 

She did not wake him, noting with approval 
that he had taken off his shoes before he lay 
down, and went on to get their supper, wishing 
for both their sakes that she had more food to 
prepare, when there came a knock on the 
kitchen door. 

Tramps were few in King’s Town, and Miss 
Cordelia was more astonished than frightened 
when two rough-looking men pushed past her 
into the big kitchen and shut the door behind 
them. She had had but a glimpse of the two 
detectives, and Monkey had forgotten to tell her 
they were coming to her peaceful and respect- 
able home. 

At sight of her alarmed, angry face, Benson 
quickly asked for Monkey, and explained who 
they were, while McCormick won her heart by 


The Third Note 


173 


a deep bow, and a compliment on her bravery. 

“Good thing, too,” he added. “We don't 
want to publish our return to town. If the 
boy's asleep, let him be for a bit. Miss Mon- 
trell, we’ve a big favor to ask of you. We 
knew we wouldn't dare try for dinner at any 
restaurant here, so we brought it along — raw. 
Would it be too much to ask your maid to cook 
it for us? We're pretty hungry now, and 
we've a night's work before us.” 

“I — I don't keep a maid,” said Miss Cordelia. 
“It's not necessary for Montrell and me. I 
will be glad to serve you myself.” 

But the two men exclaimed against that. 
“You be our guest,” said big McCormick. 
“My wife says I’m as good a cook as she is. I 
ought to be — she taught me. Just lend us your 
kitchen, and set the table and show us things.” 

After one astounded gasp, Miss Cordelia 
smiled. Maybe it was the sight of the thick 
pink steak Benson was unrolling — maybe the 
sack from which McCormick shook out pota- 
toes and onions, or the slab of yellow cheese, or 


174 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

the brown, fat apple pie in the flat box. At any 
rate it wasn’t but a few minutes before Miss 
Cordelia was flying about as excitedly as a girl, 
and when Monkey, roused by the delicious smell 
that floated upward, came downstairs, he saw a 
sight that made him think he must still be 
dreaming. 

A big rough man in very shabby clothes was 
broiling a big steak over the kitchen fire — such 
a bed of coals as the old stove hadn’t seen in 
months. Miss Cordelia, flushed and smiling, 
stood beside him stirring a big pan full of fry- 
ing onions, and another man, as disreputable 
as the first, was on his knees, removing from 
the oven a dish full of smoking baked potatoes! 

Monkey gasped with delight and astonish- 
ment, and the three looked up and saw him. 
Cousin Cordelia flushed, as though caught in a 
wicked deed, but the men laughed and wel- 
comed him, and very soon the four sat down 
to such a meal as Monkey had hardly ever seen 
upon that table. 

And as they ate, the boy, wide-eyed and ex- 


The Third Note 


175 


cited, told his story. Benson remembered the 
little old woman well, and McCormick had no- 
ticed her the day they came. They were deeply 
interested to hear it all. What the agent had 
said, the tracks in the mud of the gully, the 
mark of the wet, oddly shaped hand on the 
rocks. 

“Good — good work,” McCormick said over 
and over again, while Benson smiled and nod- 
ded and Miss Cordelia grew so interested and 
excited that she almost — but not quite — forgot 
her supper. 

Then Monkey came to his adventure at the 
Black Pool. “I tell you,” he said, “I heard 
somebody drop. I heard the thud that a fel- 
low’s feet make when he drops from a tree or a 
high fence or something. If it hadn’t been so 
still, I couldn’t have heard. And I mightn’t 
have thought anything of it then, the noise was 
so little, if I hadn’t seen something, too.” 

“What?” demanded all three of his listeners 
in a breath. 

“You know,” said Monkey, “that great big 


iy6 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

old willow that grows out at the edge of the 
water, and hangs out almost to the tallest 
rocks? Well, I saw one of the lower limbs of 
that tree snap up suddenly, as if — as if some- 
body had just jumped off it, on to the rocks !” 

For a moment Benson and McCormick 
stared at him in silence. Then Benson said 
excitedly, “But everybody has insisted that 
there wasn’t any cave in under those rocks !” 

“But Ted always insisted that there was — 
that there must be,” said Monkey earnestly. 
“Perhaps there is.” 

And then came information from an unex- 
pected source. “And there is,” said Miss Mon- 
trell. “There is a cave back in under the rocks 
at the far side of the Black Pool.” 

The two men swung about so suddenly that 
she jumped. “Why weren’t we told before?” 
snapped Benson. 

“I fancy few people knew,” answered Miss 
Cordy coldly. “I myself had quite forgotten 
the fact. I had not thought of it in many 


The Third Note 


1 77 


years. But as a girl I had two older brothers, 
who played in the Big W oods, as Montrell does 
now, though neither of them ever earned the 
nickname he has earned by his climbing,” and 
she glared at Monkey, whose nickname she 
hated dreadfully. “But,” she went on, “they 
discovered what he evidently has not, neverthe- 
less. I overheard them talking about their se- 
cret cave, under the rocks, and they were very 
angry, and swore me to secrecy. They had 
found the place by accident. They said no one 
else knew of it. And they threatened me so 
that as a child or young girl, I would never have 
dared to tell. Then I forgot it. Forgot it 
completely until to-night.” 

“How do you get to it ?” demanded Benson. 

But Miss Cordelia shook her head. “Girls 
weren’t the tomboys in my day that they are 
now,” she said. “It never entered my head to 
follow my brothers there, and they were proud 
of their secret and careful never to tell me any 
more. I simply know the cave is there, that 


178 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

only a very clever climber can reach it, and that 
there is something odd in the way you enter it. 
I can tell you no more/' 

“Thank you, ma’am — you've certainly told 
us a lot already," said McCormick. Monkey 
looked very unhappy. He actually felt dis- 
graced to think there was a mystery in the Big 
Woods he did not know of — a place worth ex- 
ploring that he had not explored! 

“What did you mean by saying there was 
something odd in the way the cave was en- 
tered?" questioned Benson. 

“The boys used to say," answered Miss 
Cordy, “that the secret would be of no good to 
them when they were grown, because only a 
boy could ‘squeeze down into the narrow slit.' ” 
“And Morelli is no bigger than a boy," said 
Benson. “He’s in this case alone — I know 
he is." 

“And," spoke up Monkey, “I can go where he 
can — I can climb where any other boy ever 
climbed! And besides, I know where to go! 
You climb far out on that limb I saw swing back 


The Third Note 


179 

in place, and then you jump out to the rocks, 
and then, from there you can very likely see 
the cave. Oh, why didn’t I ever try that be- 
fore?” And Monkey looked so tragic the 
others couldn't help laughing. 

“By George, you’re right again, youngster,” 
said Benson, and then as Monkey sprang up 
with a quick, “Come on, then,” he shook his 
head. 

“We’ve got to know the latest developments 
up at the Kings’ before we do anything to- 
night,” he said. “And, besides — a man who 
knew that place could hold it against a dozen 
who didn’t, in the dark. We’d better wait for 
that trip till daylight. Can’t you see it all? 
He gets the girl out there — she’s little and light, 
he’s exceptionally strong. Dressed as the little 
old foreign woman he keeps track of things in 
town himself — very likely leaves the girl tied 
while he’s gone — he has all the chance he wants 
to mail his letters and watch for trouble. 
Those marks you didn’t understand in the mud 
of the ravine were where he stopped and took 


180 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

off his skirts. Easier to carry them than wear 
them. It's fine work on his part ! Now then, 
Miss Montrell, will you do us one more favor? 
Go somewhere and telephone Mr. King for us. 
We can't arouse talk by appearing in public, 
and I understand you haven't any telephone. 
Tell him you are asking the latest news for 
deeply interested friends as well as for your- 
self. He'll understand that means us, and tell 
you anything there is to know." 

“I shall be only too glad to be of any further 
service," said Miss Cordelia, outwardly very 
cool, inwardly as excited as anybody, and glad 
to be an important actor in these exciting 
events. 

So off she went very happily, though she 
would have fainted in the center of the street, 
had she seen the way in which her kindly but 
awkward dinner companions “cleaned up" for 
her after she had left. The fragile old china 
came through the ordeal safely, however, and 
things looked very spick and span when she re- 
turned with her news. 


The Third Note 181 

It was news indeed ! Mr. King had received 
another note! It had not been posted at all 
this time. Dominick and Rocco had found it 
near the station. It had Mr. King’s name upon 
it, and they had hurried up the East Hill with 
it as fast as their legs could carry them. 

It said that, as Thursday and Friday had 
gone, Mr. King must have the money, and it 
should be delivered the next morning, just be- 
fore dawn. 

At three next morning, Mr. King must get 
into his smallest car and drive, alone, up and 
down the east side of the Big Woods, till he 
saw the flash of a lighted match. There he 
must drop the money, and drive on. If he re- 
turned in ten minutes, he would find at that spot 
a note telling him where to find his grand- 
daughter. 

If there was any mistake — if there were any 
signs that Mr. King was not alone — if the 
money was not as demanded, Theodora might 
never be seen again ! 

Miss Cordelia told her story very dramati- 


1 82 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

cally. As she finished, Monkey cried, “We’ve 
got to go after her now ! I don’t care whether 
it’s dark or not ! We must go !” 

“You’re right,” answered Benson grimly. 
“There’s good moonlight at least. W e’d better 
be going. The back way, please, Mr. Morley, 
and go quietly — we’d don’t want any escort on 
this trip, or we may lose what little chance we 
have.” 

Silently, the three slipped out of the back 
door of the staid old Montrell homestead, which 
never had witnessed such dramatic doings be- 
fore, passed down under the trees of the or- 
chard, over the stone wall, up through the 
grounds of deserted King’s Croft, and so at 
last, quite unseen by anybody, gained the dense 
shadow of the Big Woods. 


CHAPTER XIV 

THE CAVE UNDER THE BLACK ROCKS 

It was very beautiful in the Big Woods. 
The moonlight turned every leaf and twig to 
silver, and there was the faintest of little 
breezes, which just kept the trees stirring, as 
though they were all whispering secrets to each 
other. 

Monkey slipped through the silence of the 
woods like a small ghost, and the two men be- 
hind him made surprisingly little noise. 

Benson's plan was this: to find, if possible, 
the place where Morelli came out into the 
woods, from his cave under the rocks, and there 
to lie in wait for him, and catch him, as he 
came out in the late night to go to meet Mr. 
King. Then his work and McCormick’s being 
done, Monkey could go to the rescue of the 
Lady Ted. 


183 


184 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Now, the man was very likely trying to get 
some sleep, knowing how much he would need 
his strength a little later, and they all felt it 
would be a good time to find him off his guard. 

So now Monkey led them first to the place 
from which he had seen the tree bend and sway, 
and they noted the shape of the rocks below 
that farthest limb. Then, they went around 
the Pool, to the side where the great willow, 
so graceful and lovely in the moonlight, grew. 

They went slowly, carefully, and at last 
stood beneath the great tree. With the eyes 
of an expert, Monkey looked the tree over. He 
examined the branches from the ground, and 
then silently swung himself up into them. 

Out on one branch he crawled — back to try 
another — another still — and then he knew he 
had found the limb on which Paul Morelli had 
made his recent trips. There were broken 
twigs along it — crushed leaves — a place where 
the bark was broken — all marks of another 
climber who had recently passed that way. 

Very, very cautiously Monkey crept out upon 


The Cave Under the Black Rocks 185 

the limb. He felt it bend and sway beneath 
him, and then, lying flat along it, lay looking 
down to see what he could make out below. 
But brilliant as the moonlight was, it helped 
very little there in the shadows made by the 
great tree. However, he was certain that to 
reach any sort of foothold on the rocks, he 
would have to climb out still farther — and he 
realized how impossible the feat would be for 
anybody much heavier than he was. He also 
began to feel some doubt, for the first time since 
he had known the cave existed, that Ted was 
hidden here. How had Morelli managed to 
carry her to such a place? He began to fear 
that after all she had been taken far away. 
However, it would pay to catch Morelli, even if 
Ted wasn’t found! Monkey was quite certain 
that he was here. 

The boy climbed back cautiously, slid to the 
ground, and told his thoughts and fears to the 
men. But Benson shook his head. “She's in 
there, too," he whispered. “Morelli’s clever 
enough to get her in there somehow. See any- 


! 


186 Lady Teddy Comes to Tozvn 

thing that looked like the entrance to a cave?” 

Monkey shook his head. “It’s awfully dark 
down there,” he answered. “But of course it 
is there. When I’m down on the rocks I can 
see it. But I think I did see how he gets out. 
Just beyond me there was a flat place. I think 
he stands there, jumps for the tree, and swings 
himself up into it. It must be hard work. I’m 
the best climber in King’s Town, and while I 
can get down easy enough, I just tell you it 
won’t be any fun getting back, though I can do 
it, if he can ! But neither of you could ever get 
over there. Have to climb out so far the limb 
wouldn’t hold you.” 

“Well, then,” said Benson, “here we stay. 
He’ll have to come past here on his way out of 
the woods. We’ve got to hide ourselves. 
Which path do you suppose he takes out of 
here? Let’s explore a bit.” 

So, on hands and knees, as they dared not use 
their flashlights at all, they explored the ground 
all about the big willow. Suddenly, Monkey’s 
hand touched something buried under the 


The Cave Under the Black Rocks 187 

leaves, back beneath a dense clump of black- 
berry bushes. It was round — it was soft — it 
was covered with cloth ! His heart seemed to 
come up into his throat and choke him. Ben- 
son, who was close beside him, heard him gasp. 

“What is it?” he whispered excitedly, and 
Monkey guided the detective’s hand to the spot. 
Carefully, Benson dug among the briars, and 
brought out a black bundle, which, unrolled, 
proved to be a woman’s skirt and shawl 
wrapped about a pair of shoes. And, from the 
heart of the package, dropped a black head 
handkerchief, with weird-looking locks of gray 
hair sewed about the face of it ! 

“Ha — what have we here?” whispered Ben- 
son excitedly. “Pretty hard to get this over to 
the cave and back, I suppose, so he left it. He 
must have been pretty sure the close search of 
these woods was over, or he wouldn’t have 
risked the things here, even buried as they 
were. Good for him ! Now we know where 
to wait for the gentleman! We’ve got him!” 

Carefully he put the bundle back in the place 


1 88 Lady Teddy Conies to Town 

from which he had taken it. Then he and Mc- 
Cormick, revolvers, handcuffs and flashlights 
ready, hid themselves carefully in the bushes to 
the right and left of the spot where the clothes 
lay — not without some smothered expressions 
of pain either! Wild blackberry bushes are 
not pleasant things to hide in ! Monkey found 
a pleasanter spot, between them and the tree. 
Pie wanted to see where and how Morelli swung 
himself out of the branches, and here he could 
see that, and also anything that happened where 
the detectives were. He felt that he had box 
seats for a wonderfully exciting play ! 

Then they all settled down to wait patiently. 
Never, however, had time seemed to drag as it 
did! Monkey grew stiff and sore from his 
cramped position, and he wondered, with a 
rather wicked little grin, how the men were 
feeling — they were so much bigger than he, and 
had so much more uncomfortable places in 
which to wait! But neither of them com- 
plained — neither of them seemed to stir. As 
far as Monkey could have told from sight or 


The Cave Under the Black Rocks 189 

hearing, he might have been absolutely alone 
there in the heart of the quiet silvery woods. 

At last, from the way the moonlight lay, he 
knew that he must have lain hidden there over 
an hour. Then it was very likely about one 
o’clock. Something might begin to happen 
before long. He hoped so. He was very 
tired, and summery though the night was, he 
shivered and shook — with cold, he was certain. 
Monkey had never thought of the word 
“nerves” in connection with himself ! But the 
truth of the matter was that he was shaking 
with nervous excitement. He could hardly 
keep his teeth from chattering. 

And then suddenly every muscle in his wiry 
little body jumped, and he was very still, but 
colder than ever. For, from the black rocks 
that lay beyond the willow tree, had come a 
sound — and it was not the sound made by run- 
ning water ! 

It was a voice ! What it said, Monkey could 
not understand. But it seemed to be giving a 
short, low order to somebody. Then, he saw a 


190 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

tremor creep along that one big branch, as it 
bent far down for a moment. In a second he 
could hear the rustle of the leaves, as somebody 
crept closer — closer — along the limb. Now he 
could dimly see a dark spot among the leaves, 
it moved, there was the thud of a light body on 
the ground, close beside him, and there, in a ray 
of moonlight that shot through the leaves, stood 
Paul Morelli ! Monkey clapped one hand over 
his mouth — he was so afraid he might yell, as 
he wanted to ! 

Morelli looked worried. There was a frown 
between his black eyes. For a moment he 
stood there rigid, listening. Then he seemed 
satisfied that he was safe, and stepped quickly 
over to the bushes where he had hidden his dis- 
guise. Monkey heard him raking about in the 
leaves. Why, oh why, didn't Benson and Mc- 
Cormick spring out at him now? They were 
losing their best chance — had they gone to sleep 
back there? Was it to be left to him, Monkey 
Morley, a little boy with a revolver that 
wouldn’t shoot, to rescue Ted and arrest her 


The Cave Under the Black Rocks 191 

kidnapper, all by himself? He’d do it, he de- 
cided — or die a-trying! 

And then, as Morelli came backing out of the 
bushes with his bundle in his arms, there was a 
sudden rush of sounds. The bushes broke 
apart, bodies crashed, voices yelled, feet tram- 
pled, a revolver cracked sharply, there was a 
thud, a fall, the shrieks of a small boy, a body 
thrashed about among the leaves, steel clicked 
against steel. And then McCormick cried, 
“He shot me — the little beast/’ and Benson’s 
powerful flashlamp sprang out and lit up the 
scene. 

Morelli, quiet now, lay flat upon the ground, 
his hands held by handcuffs, big McCormick 
astride him, holding up a bleeding hand, while 
Benson himself held his revolver ready, and 
Monkey danced excitedly about them, waving 
Morelli’s gun, which he had managed to kick 
from the man’s grasp, and then catch as he 
dropped it. 

“Put that gun down,” roared McCormick. 
“You may kill us all,” and Monkey, crestfallen, 


192 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

was forced to give up the first real revolver 
he had ever even held in his hand. 

But he didn't wait to complain. “Te-e-e-d,” 
he shrieked, “o-o-oh, Ted,” and the old willow 
tree shook again as the boy leaped into it. 

“Careful, be careful,” yelled Benson. “You 
know there may be more of them in that den — 
go slow there, youngster.” 

But Monkey did not heed him now. As 
quickly as he could, he crept to the end of the 
swaying limb, gave one hasty glance at the 
rocks below and leaped. As the branch, re- 
leased, snapped back, the boy felt a sudden 
terror. He didn’t know what was before him ! 
Again he called, but there was no answer from 
Ted. Benson had given him a flashlamp, and 
he drew it from his pocket and sent its beam of 
light here — there — about the tumbled pile of 
rocks which surrounded him. Nowhere did he 
see what looked to him like the opening of a 
cave ! He began to creep about, throwing the 
light here and there, and always calling. As 


The Cave Under the Black Rocks 193 

nothing had happened to him yet, he decided 
that there was nothing to fear from any hidden 
enemies, but he heard no call from any hidden 
friend either, until, listening, he made up his 
mind that there was a noise — a queer muffled 
moaning, or crying, that came from under his 
very feet. 

He moved here and there to see in what place 
he could hear it most plainly, and at last found 
himself beside a long narrow black space that 
looked exactly like a dense shadow at the foot 
of the biggest rock. It was open — but it was 
only a crack. It was so narrow ! Surely, 
there must be some other way into the cave ! 

“Ted,” he called again, “oh, Ted! If you’re 
there, tell me how to get in !” But though the 
moaning sounded louder, and came in queer 
gasps, like words that couldn’t say themselves, 
there was no other answer. 

He stepped back under the willow and called, 
“Make him tell you the way in.” And Morelli, 
evidently feeling that as everything was over, 


194 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

he might as well win favor by helping his en- 
emies, gave a sigh of resignation, and peace- 
fully told. 

“He says,” yelled Benson, “he says you have 
to lie down and roll in. And the girl's in there 
alone.” 

Quick as a flash, Monkey lay down beside the 
long dark crack, and rolled. It took a good 
deal of bravery to do it. He slid rapidly along 
the wet rock, and was soon inside the entrance 
to the cave, in total darkness. But he had not 
rolled more than half a dozen feet, when he felt 
there was more space around him. He tried to 
stop, but couldn’t, the rock was too steep, and he 
remembered how “Alice,” when she entered 
Wonderland, fell and fell and fell ! He had al- 
ways wondered what it had felt like — he 
thought that now he knew ! 

But in a second he landed somewhere with a 
bump that jarred all through him. He stood 
up. He could even see a little. For far back 
in a corner, so set that its light never reached 
the outer world at all, glowed a fat candle. 


The Cave Under the Black Rocks 195 

About it the cave spread, low and black. The 
candle showed the flat rock on which it stood, 
and which had been used for a table. It 
showed two piles of cans — one pile opened, the 
other still full of food. Morelli could have 
stood a long siege in his queer fortress ! Most 
of all, it showed a heap of tumbled bedding, and 
lying upon it, comfortable enough, but with 
hands and feet tied and mouth gagged, was 
Miss Theodora King! 

No wonder she could not answer his call ! A 
big soft handkerchief was over her mouth, so 
that she could only make that queer moaning 
noise. 

Monkey flew to her and tried to untie her. 
His fingers trembled so he couldn’t budge the 
knots. Why, oh why, had he traded his good 
knife for that useless, silly old pistol ! But at 
last he did manage to get the handkerchief 
away from Ted’s mouth, she told him where he 
would find a knife, and in a minute she was 
free — standing there beside him laughing and 
crying and clapping her hands and thanking 


196 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

him, till Monkey grew frightened and awk- 
ward. 

Like every boy under the sun, he hated a 
fuss. “Come on out of here,” he said shortly. 
“There’s other folks outside want to know 
you’re safe.” 

“Oh, but you found me,” cried Ted. “I just 
knew you would. I knew it. And the day I 
heard you calling from the other side of the 
Pool, I tried so hard to answer. Oh, yes, yes — 
I heard ! And do you know what I wanted to 
yell back at you? T told you so — there is a 
cave!!! There is!! I’m in it!’ ” 

She started to laugh again, and Monkey be- 
gan hurrying her. He felt suffocated in that 
low cave, and Ted was very queer! 

It was hard to crawl up the slippery, sloping 
stones. As they went, Ted told how funny 
Morelli had looked when he went out. But 
presently they stood side by side, all safe and 
sound, in the glorious open air, and Monkey 
was yelling at the top of his lungs, “I’ve got 
her — I’ve got her!” 


CHAPTER XV 


SAFE AT HOME ONCE MORE 

The next question was how to get the Lady 
Ted back to shore again. But when Monkey 
suggested this, she seemed quite certain that it 
would be easy enough. “I came over all right,” 
she said. “Why can't I get back?” 

“You came over!” exclaimed Monkey. 
“How did you come?” 

“By myself — except that Mr. Morelli helped 
me a little,” answered Ted, rather defiantly. 
“Oh, yes — I know I was a goose! You see, I 
met him in the woods, and he'd been nice and 
kind at the Pavesis', and I was willing to talk, 
so we did. And then he asked me if I'd ever 
heard of the cave over here under the rocks. 
And I said, 'No — everybody said there wasn't 
any and I always said there must be ! Is there 
truly?' And then I just begged him to take 
197 


198 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

me — and he did. I was thinking of the fun 
I’d have about it with you, and I couldn’t get 
here quickly enough! He helped me, and it 
wasn’t hard getting over. I’d have come any- 
how, anyway! Silly thing that I was! He 
told me afterwards that he was so astonished 
he nearly dropped ! He’d spent days, after he 
discovered the cave, getting in food and things, 
and wondering how he was ever going to get 
me there — and then I just begged to go ! Took 
myself ! He used to laugh about it a lot. Oh, 
yes, he was good to me. Of course he tied me 
when he was gone, or when he was asleep. 
But he told me stories and fed me with awfully 
nice things — why, he even had some copies of 
St. Nicholas for me, and he never hurt me, 
though it isn’t nice to be gagged, I can tell you.” 

Monkey was so interested that he would have 
let Ted talk all night, right there, and she, too, 
wished to hear the news from home — how her 
grandparents were, and her father. She was 
delighted that they had so far succeeded in 
keeping the news from him. Now he could 


Safe at Home Once More 199 

hear that she was safe, before he heard that she 
had ever been lost at all ! 

But Benson and McCormick were calling. 
They wanted to get the children back to land, 
and the whole party out of the woods. They 
wanted to find poor old Mr. King, who would 
soon be starting out on his strange lonely ride 
with the bundle of money, which would not be 
needed now. 

They called over suggestions and instruc- 
tions. Ted was very sure she could climb back, 
with help. So at last, while McCormick, whose 
hand Benson had wrapped up comfortably 
enough for the present, guarded their prisoner, 
Benson tried his skill at climbing. He went 
out on the limb as far as he dared, so bending 
it down till it was easy for Monkey to grasp it, 
and give Ted a lift as she jumped up. She was 
a good climber, and strong. Also, she was now 
as eager to get away from that mysterious cave, 
as she had been a day or so before to enter it! 
In a few minutes she was safe, and jumped to 
the ground almost as soon as Benson himself, 


200 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

while Monkey came hurrying after along their 
odd, swaying pathway. 

Immediately the little procession began its 
walk back through the woods. Monkey led, 
with Ted beside him, their two tongues going 
as fast as tongues could go. Then came Ben- 
son, then Morelli, who walked as jauntily as if 
he had succeeded, not failed, and behind him big 
McCormick. 

Morelli himself wished to ask questions, and 
so it was that he discovered that it was due to 
Monkey that he had been suspected in the first 
place, traced and caught. 

He shook his head. “Never,” he said, 
“never from the first did I like that boy. I 
hated his big black eyes that seemed to see 
everything. I must have known that he would 
bring me the worst of luck. Oh, well — I must 
accept my fate. And there would have been no 
fun if there had been no danger. I enjoy 
adventure.” 

“Hum,” muttered McCormick sourly, as he 
nursed his injured hand, “you’ll have fun 


201 


Safe at Home Once More 

enough when we get to town, dodging the citi- 
zens. You aren't popular in King's Town, you 
know. And prisons are full of folks who like 
your kind of adventure. You’ll have plenty of 
company pretty soon !" 

Morelli shrugged his shoulders, and managed 
somehow to light a cigarette. He did not speak 
again. 

Benson had said they would go to the east 
edge of the great woods, where they would un- 
doubtedly find old Mr. King. The sky was 
just turning a soft pearl gray as they came out 
upon the road, and there, far down, they saw 
the roadster coming slowly towards them. 
Everyone, even Morelli himself, shouted. Ted 
started to run towards the machine, and met it 
a few rods down the road. The others stood 
waiting while her grandfather gathered her 
into his arms, and heard the most important 
parts of her story. 

Sad and discouraged enough he had been a 
few minutes before. Now, as at last he came 
on towards the little group in the road, his face 


202 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

beamed — until he saw Morelli. Then he was 
grim enough again, and his eyes, which had 
grown misty at sight of Ted, blazed with anger. 

Morelli had the grace to quail before those 
eyes — to shuffle and look away. For the first 
time he looked frightened — even ashamed. 

( T think,” said Benson, ‘‘that you’d better 
take Miss Theodora and the boy on home, Mr. 
King, and then send back a man with a larger 
car to take us on over to the county seat. It’s 
a bigger town, with a jail that isn’t a joke, as 
your jail is, and, besides, the folks there won’t 
be quite so excited, or so set against this gentle- 
man to my right. The men in King’s Town 
don’t love him, and might take a notion to try 
punishing him themselves, which mustn’t hap- 
pen.” 

'‘Very well,” said the old gentleman stiffly. 
As he felt just then he didn’t care a rap what 
happened to the man who had stolen his grand- 
daughter ! 

Monkey protested — he wanted to go on till 
he saw Morelli in jail ! But the men said no, 


203 


Safe at Home Once More 

and as he began to realize how worn out he 
really was, he didn’t argue the question much, 
but started to climb into the automobile beside 
Ted. As he climbed, Ted took up a fat pack- 
age to make room for him, and held it in her 
lap. 

Benson laughed, and pointed to it. “I 
judge,” he said, “that the young lady is holding 
her own ransom money, isn’t she ?” 

Mr. King nodded, and Monkey nearly fell 
backward out of the machine. That package 
there, right where he could touch it, held twenty 
thousand dollars! More money than he had 
any idea of! It seemed as much as millions! 
Enough to buy the world — to find hundreds of 
fathers, lost in China ! 

Morelli’s small dark eyes also looked at the 
package, a sudden wolfish gleam in them. So 
near had he come to the money that he wished 
— so far was it going away from him! So 
much would he have to pay for losing it ! 

It did not stay in sight to plague him very 
long. The auto started on its homeward way, 


204 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Ted waving good-by at captor and rescuers 
alike. “Remember,” she called back, “he never 
hurt me once! He tried to be as nice as he 
could under the circumstances !” 

With both fettered hands Morelli swept his 
hat from his head and made her a great bow. 
In another minute the machine turned the cor- 
ner of the road, and whirled down the east side 
of the Big Woods towards home. 

And then, against the sky, now almost light, 
loomed the tall stone walls of King’s W ood ! 

“Oh,” cried Ted, half laughing, half crying, 
“oh, how good it looks ! How nice it looks ! I 
never knew it was so lovely before! Oh, I’m 
so glad to be home !” 

Lights still gleamed in many windows of the 
house. People had been watching there for 
the return of Mr. King. No one had dared 
hope for Miss Theodora herself as yet. When 
she stood up in the machine, waving her hand 
and calling, and those who had rushed to see 
what news the returning auto brought recog- 
nized her, there was a great cheer, which 


205 


Safe at Home Once More 

brought old Mrs. King, red-eyed, anxious, to 
an upper window, and when she saw Ted she 
put out her arms as if she could reach the little 
girl far below and hold her close. Never had 
Ted realized how much her grandmother loved 
her, before. Never, until these last few days, 
had Mrs. King herself realized it. 

It was a joyous time, everybody laughing and 
talking and even crying for joy, and looking at 
Ted to see if she was thinner — which she 
wasn’t — and feeling of her to be quite sure she 
was sound and unhurt — which she was. But 
she was exceedingly dirty ! 

One man was sent with the big car to take the 
detectives and Morelli to the county seat, twelve 
miles away, while another was told to take 
Monkey home. Monkey was glad to go. He 
seemed to grow sleepier and wearier every sec- 
ond, and besides — he hated to be fussed over so 
much ! 

He wanted folks to know he’d helped save 
Ted. He was very justly proud of what he 
had done, and felt very mannish indeed. But 


2 o 6 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

— it was one thing to have the men shake his 
hand and clap him on the shoulder and tell him 
he was all right, and a fine fellow, and so on, and 
quite another to have the fat housekeeper kiss- 
ing him and the housemaids crying over him, 
and Mrs. King putting her arms around him, 
and Mrs. Parler telling everybody how she’d 
known him from a baby — which wasn’t true at 
all — and how she’d always loved him — which 
Monkey very much doubted ! He remembered 
times when she had acted far from loving! 

So, very red and much embarrassed, he was 
glad to make his escape after a hurried good- 
by to Ted, who was the only woman present 
who behaved herself decently towards him. 

A very tired little hero was motored swiftly 
towards his bed, and a very happy little heroine 
was left behind, safe in her own home at last. 

And so, for the first time in days, the old 
house settled down for some much needed rest. 
No more anxiety was necessary ! 

Ted was safe! Their Little Lady of the 
Manor was at home again ! 


CHAPTER XVI 


FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS 

The day that little Theodora King came 
home will long be remembered in King’s Town. 
The good news spread fast, and everybody 
seemed to go wild with joy. When the auto 
bearing Monkey to his home passed through the 
streets, a few early risers were already astir. 
They called out for news, and heard that which 
sent them scurrying to tell their sleepier neigh- 
bors the glad tidings. 

Monkey had found Miss Cordelia, half 
dressed, asleep on the old davenport in the hall. 
She woke, and began to bustle about, getting 
him some breakfast while she questioned him, 
and then, the meal over, hustled him off to bed. 
After which Miss Cordy dressed herself in her 
best and went out. It was seldom, in these 
days, that she had a chance to be as important 
as she felt the last of the Montrells should be, 


207 


208 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

and she could not afford to miss this opportu- 
nity. She had, indeed, a marvelous tale to un- 
fold! And she enjoyed as great a popularity 
among the grown-ups that day, as had Esther 
Barrows among the children, just lately. 

Ted, too, had been coddled and petted and 
then put to bed. But she hadn’t wanted to go 
at all. She had had altogether too much rest 
lately ! And later in the morning she was only 
too willing to get up and go out, and show her- 
self, alive and well, to the people. Crowds of 
them, rich and poor, foreign and native born, 
had come up the hill clamoring for a sight of 
her. Everybody talked together — everybody 
shook hands, and congratulated each other on 
the fact that their tragedy was safely passed. 
Never had anything brought the people of the 
village so close together before — made them 
realize so thoroughly that they were neighbors, 
and ought to be friends ! 

Whatever her adventure had done to Ted, it 
had been rather good for the town. 

“You’d better get Ted out there, so they can 


Five Thousand Dollars 209 

see her, or the house will be stormed by the 
happy mob,” said Mr. Harris, smiling. “They 
act as if they weren’t really certain yet that 
she’s quite safe. Everybody’s crazy to see the 
child — the Mill people most of all. She has 
become enormously popular over there in Mill 
Town, you know.” 

Old Mr. King nodded. “I know, and I’m 
intensely happy that it’s so,” he said. “We 
Kings have been getting too far away from our 
people of late — though we didn’t mean to. We 
couldn’t help it,” and the old man’s eyes grew 
sad at thought of the reason why the Mills and 
the people who worked in them had been 
neglected. The memory of his son’s tragic 
injury was never far from his mind. 

But he went and got Ted, and she came out, 
a little pale, but very much herself, and so 
cheerful that the wilder spirits among the men, 
who had been longing for a chance at Paul 
Morelli, forgot about him a little and took their 
energy out in cheering the heroine, instead of 
punishing the villain. 


210 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

There was a call for Ted to go down to the 
Mills, too, so after lunch she went, and was 
cheered loudly, and made to tell her story of 
those days in the cave over and over again. 
Paul Morelli had been wise to be kind to her! 
Things would have gone badly with him if she 
had had a different sort of story to tell ! 

Monkey Morley was out that afternoon, too, 
as fit as ever, and curious to know what was 
going on. In all innocence he started down- 
town. He had expected to be, as he expressed 
it to himself, u some punkins” among the boys, 
after his thrilling adventures. He wanted to 
be! He had never amounted to much among 
the others before, as they all had had better 
chances to shine than he had, and he did not 
wish to miss this bit of triumph. 

But — he was quite unprepared for the way in 
which the rest of the world — the grown folks — 
acted! He didn't like it at all! He was em- 
barrassed, upset, unhappy. Why, he soon 
found he couldn’t stir a step without being 
stopped, congratulated, shaken by the hand 


Five Thousand Dollars 21 1 

until his arm ached, told over and over again 
what a fine and clever boy he was ! The only 
good thing about the business was that many 
“treats” went along with the compliments. 
For the first and only time in his short life, 
Montrell Hamilton Morley had, that day, all 
the ice cream, candy, pop, pickles, watermelon 
and lemonade that he wanted! He had more 
than he could possibly eat, and was forced to 
wonder why people couldn’t take turns doing 
things for him, so that some of this present joy 
might be carried on into the blank and candy- 
less future! 

He didn’t get as far as the Mills that day, 
where he had meant to go, to see Dominick and 
Rocco. Having no automobile in which to 
ride, as Ted had, he necessarily walked, and 
his walking was much interrupted. But in the 
late afternoon Ted and Mr. King saw him, as 
they drove down the village street, stopped to 
take him in, then drove for Miss Montrell, and 
took them both up the hill to King’s Wood for 
dinner. 


212 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

And after dinner, there was an enormous 
surprise for Monkey. He had been so busy, 
he had not kept track of things in town very 
well. But it seemed that as soon as he was 
really certain Ted was lost, Mr. King had of- 
fered a reward of five thousand dollars to the 
person who found her and brought her safely 
home. And it seemed that now, he and every- 
body else thought that Monkey had earned all 
that money ! 

Monkey understood now many remarks 
which had been made to him on the street that 
afternoon, which he hadn't understood, or both- 
ered with. Everyone must be taking it for 
granted that the money was already his ! 

He scowled. Somehow he didn’t like the 
notion ! 

“I couldn’t have got her if it hadn’t been for 
the detectives,” he said. “They did it.” 

“And they couldn’t have got her if it hadn’t 
been for you,” urged Mr. King. “You sus- 
pected Morelli first. You recognized him in 
his very clever disguise. You followed him. 


Five Thousand Dollars 213 

You — with the help of Miss Cordelia” — and 
the old gentleman made that lady a bow — “dis- 
covered the cave. And you all alone went into 
the cave and brought Ted out! So I'd like to 
see anybody with a better right to that money 
than you have ! Benson and McCormick quite 
agree with me. They helped — but they'll be 
well paid, and, my boy, the real work was yours, 
and so the real reward ought to be yours, too !” 

“But — but I did it for Ted,” cried Monkey 
rather wildly. “She's my friend — the only 
real friend I've ever had. You can't take 
money for doing things for your friends!” 

“Oh, yes, you can,” answered Mr. King, 
while Ted herself would have burst into ex- 
cited speech, if her grandmother hadn't stopped 
her. “Of course, you did it for Ted. We all 
know and understand that. We know, too, 
that you hadn't even heard of this reward 
while you were taking all those risks and doing 
all that work! But, just the same, the reward 
was there, and you earned it honestly, and 
ought to take it.” 


214 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Mr. King was very much in earnest. Since 
his return to town he had begun to imagine 
that Miss Cordelia Montrell’s income was very 
small indeed. He noticed things she did and 
didn’t do, the look in her worn old face, more 
than did the people who had lived with her right 
along. 

Because he and she had been boy and girl 
together — because their two families had long 
been friends — because of the friendship now 
between her boy and his granddaughter — he 
had long been trying to find a way to help the 
proud old lady. And now, when he thought 
the way had been easily and completely opened 
to him, here was a still prouder small boy trying 
to upset everything ! 

He wanted to say, “Well, here’s the money. 
You can’t help yourself. You’ve got to take 
it,” but he saw that wouldn’t do. So he tried 
another argument. 

“Say you don’t want the money now — I don’t 
suppose you’d really know what to do with so 
much cash in the house! You wouldn’t know 


Five Thousand Dollars 215 

how to spend it. But let me keep it for you, 
and invest it. I can fix things in such a way 
that from that five thousand dollars, I can give 
you, every month of your life, twenty-five dol- 
lars, which you can spend, or give your cousin 
here to spend for you.” He saw to his delight, 
that he was on the right track at last. 

Monkey jumped. Five thousand dollars was 
so big a sum he hadn't understood it. But 
twenty-five dollars a month — he knew what 
that would mean to himself and Cousin Cordy! 
It was within five dollars of the sum his father 
had sent each month. His big black eyes 
flashed up suddenly and met Miss Cordelia's, 
and he understood that while she approved of 
him very highly, and wouldn't ever blame him 
if he said no again to Mr. King, still — she 
would like that twenty-five dollars a month 
ever and ever so much! It wouldn't be fair 
to her to say no! 

“I tell you what !" he cried. “I'll take it for 
now. And then when I'm grown up and my 
father’s safe home again, I’ll give it back to 


21 6 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

you. I couldn’t take it for always, but I can 
for now.” 

“That suits me,” said the old gentleman 
heartily, though he was rather taken aback by 
the part about the boy’s father. He had no 
idea the child believed that father to be still 
alive ! 

But Monkey felt happy. He saw the re- 
lieved look in Miss Cordelia’s tired, proud old 
face, and he felt he hadn’t really taken the 
money either. And — goodness, Cousin Cordy 
ought to be able to get a few more good things 
to eat out of all that, and a little more coal, and 
— and he’d just demand real boy waists out of 
it ! He felt he really had earned them ! 

But now he wanted to change the subject. 
“Ted,” he said, “you told me how you got into 
the cave, but you didn’t tell me what you did 
when you found you had to stay there !” 

“Nor me,” said old Mr. King. “There’s 
been so much to do, we haven’t talked much. 
Tell us, Teddy.” 

“I feel so silly, and so mad at myself when 


Five Thousand Dollars 217 

I think of it,” said Ted, scarlet with anger. 
“Why, I just hurried along with him, as I told 
you. I couldn’t get there quick enough. I 
never thought of being afraid, till I had to roll 
down into the cave. It was so black, and the 
opening so small, that somehow I was a little 
scared, but I thought what fun it would be to 
crow to Monkey about the cave, and so in I 
went. And then I saw a candle burning ’way 
back, just as you did, Monkey. And I saw two 
piles of bedding, and a whole lot of tin cans, 
and some books, and two copies of St. Nicholas , 
and more candles — a heap of them. I said 
‘Why, Mr. Morelli, do you live here?’ and he 
said, ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘Do you read St. 
Nicholas ?’ and he said, ‘No, but you do, and 
you’re going to live here with me for a little 
while.’ I just laughed. I thought he was jok- 
ing. But he went on and explained every- 
thing to me — how I couldn’t go home till 
grandpa had paid a lot of money for me, and 
that he’d be very good to me as long as I be- 
haved and didn’t make a noise. And right 


218 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

there I began to scream as loud as I could, and 
run for the entrance, but he caught me and 
threw me on my bed and tied me and gagged 
me. It didn’t hurt much, except the gag, but, 
oh, I was frightened and angry! And then 
I understood he was in earnest. But I knew 
somebody would find me. And then — oh, it 
was awful the time I heard Monkey calling. 
I could just hear — it was faint, ever so faint, 
and Mr. Morelli told me that, even if I an- 
swered, Monkey couldn’t hear. But I knew 
he'd find me, then. Mr. Morelli told me won- 
derful stories, and we played dominoes, and he 
was very nice and got good meals. But I was 
uncomfortable when he was away, because he 
had to tie me then, and it was always pretty 
dark in there, so I hardly knew night from day, 
and I thought I’d been gone over a week. I 
was so surprised to find it was only from Wed- 
nesday to Saturday! But I’m out, and I’m 
happy, and I’m going off to see my father next 
week!” 


CHAPTER XVII 

LADY TED GIVES A PROMISE 

That was the truth! The Lady Ted was 
going home to her father! Monkey was not 
the only child who was horrified to hear the 
news. 

Of course there was a meeting up in the 
Pressly’s barn to discuss the matter, which the 
children heard about through Mr. Johns on 
Saturday afternoon. 

“I suppose, after an experience like this, she 
never will come back any more/’ sighed Mary 
May. 

“I wouldn’t/' said Muriel decidedly. “It 
was awful enough for anybody! And to have 
it happen to a King!” 

“Poof! The Kings aren’t any better than 
other folks — they’re just richer,” snapped 


219 


220 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

Blanche Black. “It didn't hurt her any more 
to be kidnapped than it would you or me ! But 
I'm sorry she's going away. I think she could 
be real nice if she tried.’’ 

Muriel glared, but knowing nothing to say 
to such remarks, kept still, with a “You are be- 
neath contempt” sort of manner, and just then 
the little hoofs of Bud Spencer’s brown pony 
clattered outside. Bud had been sent down 
after Esther. She was a very important per- 
son these days, living as she did right next door 
to Monkey Morley. 

The day before she had told his story, as she 
had heard Miss Cordelia tell it to her family. 
To-day, she added the rest of his adventures 
and an account of what Ted had then told about 
her doings in the cave. 

“Oh, dear me, how deliciously exciting,” 
sighed Mary May, all the story-loving side of 
her reveling in the stirring things that were 
happening about her. 

“Wasn't Monkey sharp though — and 
brave?” said Barry admiringly. “Just think 


221 


Lady Ted Gives a Promise 

— being around with those city detectives like 
that,” and Tom Pressly sighed with envy. 

“I think he’s a regular hero, and I’ve named 
my best ginuea pig after him,” put in a Pow 
Wow” Carpenter. “I — I wish we’d been 
nicer to him.” 

“I knew from the first that he was a very 
superior boy, and that the rest of you didn’t 
appreciate him,” said Blanche Black disdain- 
fully. "A stranger notices such things, and 
folks in little towns like yours are so narrow- 
minded.” Miss Black said this with such an 
exact imitation of her rather sharp tongued 
mother that it was a very good thing none of 
the older members of the Methodist church 
were present. If they had been, there might 
have been hard times ahead for the wife of 
their new minister, who had thought she was 
safe in speaking her mind inside of her own 
family circle. 

But the children took it meekly enough. 
They were all feeling very tender towards the 
Lady Ted, very proud of Monkey, very 


222 Lady Teddy Conics to Town 

ashamed of themselves — even Muriel, who had 
always disliked this particular boy, and never 
minded showing it, felt differently to-day. 

“I wish we could make it up to him some- 
how, said warm hearted little Georgia. 

“We just must!” exclaimed impulsive Made- 
leine. 

“I wish, too, we could do something nice for 
Theodora King,” said Mary May. “Some- 
thing that would make her remember us pleas- 
antly, and maybe want to come back here 
again.” 

“T-t-then,” stammered “Pow Wow,” who 
never could speak clearly when he was excited, 
“w-why can’t we give the two of them a whop- 
ping big party? All of us g-go into it t-t-to- 
gether, you know, and make it a regular o-o-o 
— jinks — I can’t think of the right word!” 

“Ovation,” supplied Mary May, who was on 
intimate terms with words the others hardly 
knew. “That’s it — that’s just the word and 
just what we’ll do, too! We’ll give them an 
ovation! Tow Wow,’ you’re a darling.” 


223 


Lady Ted Gives a Promise 

Which public acknowledgement so overcame 
the bashful u Pow Wow,” that he grabbed his 
guinea pigs and retired hastily and permanently 
from that particular discussion. But it went 
serenely on without him. 

‘‘Your mothers,” said Mary May to Georgia 
and Esther, “are calling on my mother. I’m 
going to go right in and get them out here to 
help us.” 

No sooner said than done. The few chairs 
were carefully dusted and set in comfortable 
nooks for the ladies, and they were soon deep 
in the scheme, of which they approved from 
the first. 

They succeeded in convincing Muriel that 
the party should not be a stiff and formal re- 
ception, like Madam King’s, and, on the other 
hand, told the boys it simply couldn’t be a sort 
of Wild West Show either. 

“But let’s have it here— right here in this 
barn,” pleaded Mary May. “Have it right 
where we have such a lot of fun, and let her see 
how we play, and what our good times are like. 


224 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

That was voted a good idea, by children and 
mothers alike, and the date set for Tuesday, as 
Mr. King had told Dr. Pressly, when he went 
up to look Ted over and be sure she was none 
the worse for her days in the cave, that he 
couldn’t possibly get away to take Ted West till 
Wednesday. 

The West Hill children were so excited they 
could hardly sleep in the time before the party. 

Bud Spencer drove himself, Georgia and 
Mary May over to King’s Wood on Sunday aft- 
ernoon to invite Ted to the celebration to be 
given in honor of her and her rescuer, and they 
had a very pleasant little visit with her. 

Tom Pressly and Barry Welles went down 
to ask Monkey, accompanied by Muriel Johns, 
who volunteered as a sort of punishment for 
herself, for the way she had treated Monkey 
in the past, and though the two never could be 
real friends, they patched up their differences 
enough so that they never were enemies any 
more at least. 

Monkey was much delighted by the idea of 


Lady Ted Gives a Promise 225 

the party, though he accepted his invitation 
very calmly and indifferently. He was enjoy- 
ing his new place as hero among the boys im- 
mensely. And on Monday his joy was in- 
creased. For Miss Cordelia, who was tre- 
mendously excited and happy these days, took 
him down to King’s Town’s best store and 
bought him a new suit, and shoes and stockings 
and shirt waist and tie — and let him pick out 
the sort of things he wanted, too ! He wasn’t 
to go to his party as poorly dressed as he had 
had to go to other parties of late years ! 

There was just one cloud in his sky at pres- 
ent — Ted’s going away. Would she ever come 
back again ? 

That question was bothering the other chil- 
dren, too. “She won’t — I just know she 
won’t,” remarked the generally sunshiny 
Georgia, with great gloom. 

“I shan’t blame her if she doesn’t,” answered 
Mary May. “Though I do think she feels a 
little differently towards us.” 

“I went up to see her yesterday, when my 


226 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

mother went to call,” said Esther with much 
importance. “And we had a good time, and 
she said she was sorry to go.” 

“Humph — she was just being polite,” as- 
serted Blanche briskly, and Muriel sighed and 
Madeleine scowled, fearing this to be the truth. 

“Pow Wow,” who had come up looking for 
Tom and Barry, overheard this “girl meeting” 
in the big barn, which they were decorating for 
the next night, and had a bright idea. 

His round, plain, spectacled face was thrust 
in at the door, his pleasant voice stuttered 
another suggestion, though he felt that if Mary 
May called him a darling again, he couldn't 
survive it. 

“A-a-a-sk her to come back at the party,” he 
said. “M-make Mary May s-s-say a speech, 
and ask her to c-co-come back.” And he van- 
ished. 

“The very idea!” cried a chorus of voices. 
Mary May went around the rest of the after- 
noon, doing her work in a daze, as she com- 
posed that speech, and everybody felt happier. 


Lady Ted Gives a Promise 227 

Every effort was made, that could be made 
in so short a time, to make that party a success. 

The big airy barn was scrubbed and dusted. 
The boys brought long trailing vines and green 
boughs from the woods, the girls stripped their 
mothers' gardens of flowers, and kettles and 
bottles and fruit jars, well hidden by moss and 
hemlock boughs, were filled with leaves and 
blossoms and set wherever a place could be 
found for them, till the big room looked like a 
bower. 

The King's Town band had volunteered to 
come up during the evening and play, the sup- 
per that the mothers were planning was a 
marvel — everybody was excited and busy and 
happy, and if the Lady Ted still shrank a little 
from her social duties, she let no one, not even 
Monkey, suspect the fact. 

It had been considered fitting that she and 
Monkey should arrive together. So the big 
King automobile stopped at his door at half- 
past four — the party supper was set for six — 
and the two children arrived in state. 


228 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

None of the children were so “dressed up” 
that out-door games couldn’t be played, and 
Ted had her first taste of them. It hardly 
seemed possible to the others that she never 
had played tag and prisoners’ base and other 
absolutely every day things, before! But she 
hadn’t had children to play them with. 

She explained this in between times, with 
what little breath she had left. For she was 
playing everything, and enjoying everything, 
too. It would have done the heart of her 
father good to see her. She was a child among 
other children at last ! 

At the supper table, she sat at one end, 
Monkey at the other, and each was shown 
honors, as the guests of the occasion. 

Madam King, peeping in at her granddaugh- 
ter, was rather shocked. Ted was eating so 
fast and so much and talking so excitedly as 
she ate! Madam King was inclined to turn 
up her haughty old nose! But Grandfather 
King was delighted. He said so, and he 


Lady Ted Gives a Promise 229 

beamed upon everybody, and had a photog- 
rapher there to take a picture of the scene, and 
wished with all his heart that his son could 
see it, as he did ! 

After supper there were quiet games for a 
little, and then the band came, and after an 
“exhibition piece” or two, struck up a Virginia 
Reel. Mr. King stepped up to Miss Cordelia, 
whispering something to Monkey which caused 
him to turn red as a lobster. But nevertheless 
he walked bravely up to Madam King, made 
his bow, held out his arm, and Madam King 
said, “Good gracious — what a boy — the idea,” 
and then smiled and flushed and went with him 
to join the line! Everybody found a partner 
— everybody danced ! And everybody, Madam 
King included, had a gloriously good time ! 

There wasn’t a thing formal about that 
party. It was just honest, wholesome, kindly 
fun, and even Madam King couldn’t call it 
rough or unmannerly either! 

People in King’s Town believed in early 


230 Lady Teddy Comes to Town 

hours, so everything stopped at nine o’clock. 
There was just one more number on the pro- 
gram — Mary May’s speech ! 

It was a glorious speech, and Mary May with 
her red cheeks and bright eyes looked prettier 
than she ever had looked before while she gave 
it. 

There was a surprise, too. The children 
had collected kodak pictures, views they had 
taken themselves, of each other and their favor- 
ite play places, and made an album of them, as 
a farewell gift to Ted. 

“And when you look at these pictures,” 
wound up Mary May, “we want you to remem- 
ber that they are pictures of your friends, and 
your play-places, and your town — and that 
everybody and everything is here, waiting for 
you, and hoping just as hard as can be, that 
you’ll come back.” 

Ted’s big eyes were misty, her face very pale, 
as she took the book. She saw everyone was 
waiting for her to say something. 

“Thank you,” she gasped. “Oh, thank you 


Lady Ted Gives a Promise 231 

ever so much. You've all been good to me. 
Awfully good. And I do like you all. And 
— and I promise I’ll come back and go to school 
with you this winter!” And in the rousing 
cheer that went up, the Lady Ted slipped 
quietly away, tears on her cheeks, but in her 
heart a great deal of happiness. 




















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